


Van der Linde’s Coffee and Tea

by luxgloriana



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Arthur Morgan has anxiety, Bisexual Arthur Morgan, Bisexual John Marston, Chronic Illness, F/M, Fluff, Follows Canon, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, More Poly 2k19, Multi, Politics, Polyamory, Protests, much more than you would expect from an indulgent coffeeshop au, this is not a slow burn! there is little angst! this au exists so your faves can be happy!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 15:45:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 81,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17409695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxgloriana/pseuds/luxgloriana
Summary: Arthur usually liked working at Van der Linde’s Coffee and Tea.  If nothing else, it was worth it for the health insurance, and to get out of the house and out of his studio, to be around other people-his friends, his family, his community.But sometimes, it wasn’t fucking worth it.***Or, Red Dead Redemption 2, with a happy ending and much lower stakes.





	1. Winter Storm Colter

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve played a little bit with character’s ages (to either make them college students, or old enough to be established in their careers) and with the timeline of events in Arthur’s life, but nothing too radical. I’ve also modernized the map and geography. 
> 
> I didn’t want to set the coffee shop in one of the established towns in game, because the gang in-game are transient and don’t have anywhere to call home. So the coffee shop is set in Horseshoe Overlook, in the town of Limpany (the burned-out town near Horseshoe Overlook in the game), which I have turned into a modern large town/small city (50k people?) that starts down by the river, and includes in-game Limpany and Horseshoe Overlook. 
> 
> As the tag said, I'm surprised by how closely the plot I was able to figure out for this AU follows the plot of the game, with a few not so surprising differences. For instance, no one dies (sorry if that's a spoiler, but this is a coffee shop au, it's not a coffee shop/The Purge au)

_So much for spring_ , Arthur thought, looking out the large glass window that overlooked the street. It was late March, and at least according to the passing of the equinox earlier that week, it was supposed to be spring. But, as usual, the weather did not care for what humans thought it should and should not do.  While the ground and the roads had been entirely clear of snow and ice when Arthur had driven to work at the ass crack of dawn, there were 4 inches of snow on the ground, with another 9 to 12 expected before midnight. 

And it was only 10:30 in the morning.

Meteorologists, always so quaint about naming things that had the ability to destroy entire ecosystems and ruin people’s lives, had called it Winter Storm Colter.

Winter Storm Colter was very bad for business.

Usually, Van der Linde’s Coffee and Tea was at capacity this time on a Saturday morning, full of students and professors and suburban women and local business people, all chatting and working and reading and sipping their drinks at one of their many tables. But today, only the most intrepid students from MacAlister College, the liberal arts school three blocks away, had bundled up and brought their books and notes with them, and the only people who stopped in to buy a coffee to go were the people who had no choice but to leave their houses that weekend morning—the employees of the hospital down the road, and the plow truck drivers fighting off the snow.

Compared to the usual Saturday morning bustle, this was… interminable.

At least the company was pleasant. Javier had been working at Van der Linde’s for years, and Arthur liked him, a lot, and he was easy to talk to. That was a quality Arthur really appreciated in a co-worker, since he had to put up with bombastic fools like Sean, or the newest hire, Kieran, who could talk to the customers just fine, but could not finish a goddamn sentence around Arthur. 

And Tilly and Mary-Beth were, in all honesty, Arthur’s absolute favorite employees, although he tried very hard not to show favoritism. Charming with the customers, quick and focused behind the bar, always ready to make some clever conversation when business was slow. Working with them was easy, and fun, too.

But there was essentially no work left to do, and there was always work to be done in the shop. Coffee had been brewed, tables were clean, mugs and plates were washed. Arthur had run out of menial tasks to assign, so he had given up and given Tilly and Mary-Beth permission to leave the counter and go talk with the small colony of their sorority sisters that had formed at one of the long wooden tables in the center of the floor.

He knew he could have just sent them home, back to their apartments, but neither he nor Dutch liked cutting hours when they knew their employees needed the money. And college students always needed money.

That left Arthur and Javier to talk behind the counter, although their conversation was slow. They spent little time talking and more time staring aimlessly at the coffee shop around them.

Van der Linde’s Coffee and Tea was the perfect blend of modern and antique, of clean and cozy, that Arthur had been trying to create with the ongoing renovations in his own home for months, but hadn’t had much success with—he should probably just bite the bullet and ask Susan for decorating advice. The walls were bright, the original wooden floors stained dark and gleaming, the walls decorated with an eclectic mix of antique frames and works by local artists (including a painting and a sketch done by Arthur), the golden Italian espresso machine and white marble countertop at the heart of it all. The music playing through the speakers was interesting without being obnoxious, with playlists curated by Javier himself, and the lighting was bright without being headache-inducing fluorescent. It was supposed to be a place of both relaxation and inspiration, where anyone could feel comfortable whether they were alone or with friends.

Arthur was proud of this place. He was only a manager, but the owners were the closest thing he had to family, so he felt real proud of how this little place had grown over the past decade, and how it had become important to people.

Dutch, the primary owner, was a smart man. When he and Hosea had been figuring out what to do with the block of empty and struggling storefronts they’d recently acquired on Horseshoe Overlook, a coffee shop was at the top of their list. They were halfway between the college and the hospital, the two busiest places in town, and the students and the professors, the doctors and nurses, those were people who could always use some caffeine or a comforting warm drink. And Dutch, he’d always been a big fan of the fine art of conversation, of places where people could sit and talk and think. He always talked about how the coffee shops of Europe were important to the Age of Enlightenment because they were places where people could think and discuss revolutionary ideas—and he wanted to recreate that in a town in the middle of the Heartlands.

Not all of Dutch’s plans pan out, but the coffee shop was a definite success.

Arthur had been reluctant to accept Dutch’s offer to work here, nearly 8 years ago, when the shop was still covered in sawdust and the furniture under tarps to protect it from the construction. He really wasn't interested in any job that involved talking to people so often—but it was worth it. If nothing else, it was worth it for the medical insurance and to have a reason to leave his apartment after—

The front door opened with a gust of cold air, startling Arthur from his thoughts as Javier greeted, “Hey, little man! How are you this morning?”

A freckled little boy with dirty blonde hair in a big blue coat scampered up to the counter, the snow in his hair and on his shoulders melting as he approached.

“Hello Uncle Arthur, Uncle Javier. Could I have a hot chocolate, please?” He asked, pulling a few crumpled dollars the pocket of his puffy coat.

“Of course you can, kid. That’ll be one dollar.” Arthur said, stepping up the register and punching in the order as Javier set about steaming the milk.

“But dad said it was two dollars and fifty cents for a hot chocolate.” The kid said, setting all of his money on the countertop, struggling to push it towards Arthur as he balanced on the tips of his toes.

“I’m giving you the Jack Marston discount! It’s only one dollar for you, kid.” Arthur pushed the money back towards Jack and watched as the little boy’s skepticism melted away. Jack nodded and picked up his change.  If Dutch were there, he would have been appalled that Arthur was accepting any money from Jack, but Arthur remembered how exciting it was to spend the money that you'd earned at that age. 

_God, he’s a cute kid._

“So what are you up to this morning, kid?” Javier asked, leaning around the espresso machine to look down at Jack as he heated the milk. “Hanging out at the bakery with mom and dad?”

“Yeah.” Jack said, shifting from one foot to the other. “I was supposed to go to swimming lessons today, but they were canceled because of the snow. Now I have to spend the whole day in the bakery, because mom’s finishing up on a cake for a wedding today, and she needs dad to be there and help her.  Mac and Davey had to take the day off work today, so dad needs to help her carry it to the party.”

_A wedding cake._

“Well, if you want to come hang out with your uncles and with Mary Beth and Tilly, you can stay with us for a little bit. 

“Maybe.” Jack answered. “I have my books and my tablet over at the bakery, but it’s still easy to get bored.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.” Arthur said, taking the finished hot chocolate from Javier’s hands and handing it over the counter to Jack. “Here you go, kiddo. Be careful not to slip and fall out there.”

“I’ll be careful. Thanks Uncle Arthur, thanks Uncle Javier!” Jack turned away from the counter and walked to the front door.  He and waved at Tilly and Mary-Beth, and a table full of well-caffeinated sorority sisters smiled and waved back as he pushed open the front door with his shoulder and walked back to the bakery two doors down.

And now, thanks to an offhand comment made by a kindergartener, Arthur finally understood why Abigail had been so terse with him as he picked up the pastries and sweets the bakery provided to the coffee shop, and why John had spent no time talking about his other job working with his wife as they traded off shifts.

Of course.

He’d gotten the elegant parchment invitation months ago, and had sent his regrets. And he’d forgotten about it in the meantime, even though he’d seen _her_ , recently. She’d come up to town to visit her brother, a student at the college who had fallen in deep with the Chelonians, and had dropped by to visit Arthur at the cafe.  She’d told him herself—she was getting married on her mother’s birthday, so she could feel like her mother was part of the ceremony, and she was getting married here, in the town where she’d lived as a teenager, where she’d gone to college— _and were she’d met Arthur_. The ceremony and reception would be at the old Victorian mansion fifteen minutes outside of town, which had been turned into a Pinterest-perfect wedding venue and bed and breakfast a few years back. The owners had bought a few old painting’s of Arthur’s, paintings inspired by love and family and romance, paintings he’d done before his life had gone to shit twice, thrice over.

Arthur knew he wasn’t supposed to, that he shouldn’t, but that night he poured himself a glass of 15-year-old scotch and opened his Instagram account on his phone, the one he used to showcase his art and the occasional picture of his cat, Boadicea. The first three photos that popped up were of the Gillis-Linton wedding.

Mary made a beautiful bride. Arthur expected nothing less.

Before he could really stop himself, he sent her a text message: _sorry again i couldn’t make it, but i hope the snow didn’t ruin your big day. i wish you nothing but the best._

He regretted the message almost immediately after he sent it, but he couldn’t take it back. At least he hadn’t done something real foolish, like using an emoji. He could never remember which ones had dirty connotations and which were just little pictures.

But that was just another embarrassing mistake made on behalf of Mary Gillis-Linton. _Throw it on the pile._

Arthur sighed, finished off his scotch, and poured himself another. And then he settled onto his plush couch, pulled a blanket over his legs, and watched out his living room window as the snow continued to fall. 


	2. A Rich Inner Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting the first two chapters at once! 1, because I wasn't sure if I was going to make these first two chapters one -longer than the others chapter, and 2. in honor of my very own Winter Storm Colter, Winter Storm Harper, which has kept me inside for two days.

The main streets of Limpany were free of snow by the time Arthur went in to accept a delivery from Bill Williamson, the coffee roaster, early the next morning. Most of the yards and the roofs and sidewalks he passed during the five-minute drive were still buried under a foot of snow, and more than a few trees had lost branches and a telephone wire had snapped under the weight of its burden.

The good news was, it was supposed to warm up above freezing by late morning. Bad news was, everything outside was going to be a wet, muddy mess for days, and it would still take ages for all of the piles of snow to melt completely.

Arthur was fully expecting another quiet day at VDL’s, exactly like the day before with but one notable exception. Sunday was Javier’s usual weekend day off—occasionally, he went to morning Mass with his mother—and Sean was scheduled to be in to work in his stead.

So while, in all likelihood, the cafe itself would be quiet with few customers passing through, Sean would not be.  Thankfully, Tilly and Mary-Beth were scheduled to work again that morning, and they were pretty good about keeping Sean in check.

Usually.

About an hour after opening—at around the time when all of the caffeinated drinks his employees had made for themselves to enjoy started to kick in—Arthur resigned himself to the fact that that just wasn’t going to be the case today.

Sundays were almost always slower than Saturdays, and that held true on that weekend, even if that Saturday had been the victim of another climate-change based snow apocalypse that had kept nearly everyone inside. Only a few of the students were desperate enough to leave their dorm rooms for the coffee and atmosphere at Van der Linde’s Coffee, and only a few bald and grey-haired men reading newspapers had come to represent the townies.

As a consequence, Mary-Beth and Tilly weren’t keeping Sean on the straight and narrow so much as they were egging him on for their own entertainment. Arthur was almost able to ignore them and instead just think about some paintings he wanted to do, up until the point came where he became the subject of their teasing.

“So, what about you, big fella? What did you get up to last night?” Sean asked, slapping Arthur on the shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts of landscapes and oil paints.

“Nothing. Which was exactly what I wanted to do.” Arthur answered, hiding his grimace behind his own cup of coffee. If Sean were to know how much Arthur was hating this, then nothing would keep him from digging his heels in and being even more nosy.

“Oh, see? Good for you, Arthur, I think that counts as self-care.” Mary-Beth said, her smile bright and teasing.

Mary-Beth has been after Arthur to practice _self-care_ ever since he’d let it slip that he had some health problems. It took a silly argument and a couple of internet searches for Arthur to realize self-care wasn’t some bullshit term for masturbation that Mary-Beth had made up. And ever since then, she’d been nagging him about drinking more water, getting more sleep, and taking the occasional day off from work to relax.

(He never told her, but Arthur really enjoyed the fancy bath bomb Mary-Beth had given him for Christmas that turned his bath water red and made his skin feel really soft. He’d take it to his grave, but he ordered a dozen more from the same store the day after using the first.)

“It sounds nothing but boring, to me. Are you sure you weren’t spending it with your dozens and dozens of secret girlfriends and boyfriends getting up to a wild time, old man?”

“Sean,” Tilly interrupted, leaning against the back counter, where so much of their equipment sat. “What the hell is with your obsession with Arthur’s sex life? It’s suspicious. Do you have a crush on him?”

“Oh, Tilly, it’s just because he and Karen haven’t been seeing much of each other lately,” Arthur said, glaring at Sean once again, enjoying it very much as the little Irish shithead withered before his eyes. “And because he’s an annoying little prick.”

“And if what Karen has told me is correct,” Mary-Beth added, choking down a sip of her Italian soda so she could butt into the conversation, “then he also has a little—“

“Leave Sean MacGuire Junior out of this—“

“Jesus.” Arthur muttered, leaning onto the counter by the register, holding his face in his hands.

Dutch, Hosea, _even_ _Susan_ wanted to make this a fun place to work—not just the coffee shop, but all of the stores on Horseshoe Overlook. They wanted to start an eclectic, unofficial family business (the businesses were official, it was the family that wasn’t.) Arthur was no expert on families, but surely this sort of thing was too damn far.

Immediately, Arthur sent Sean to clean up after one of the newspaper-reading men, who had just vacated his table and had left behind a few crumbs. For the first time since his dear, darling employees showed up, there was quiet behind the counter.

“If you want us to,” Mary-Beth muttered, as the three of them watched Sean wipe down the little table. “We could start punching him—or maybe just pinching him—every time he starts talking about sex. You probably can’t get away with it, being our manager and everything—“

“You don’t need to hurt him. Just keep annoying him, that’s all the satisfaction I need.” Arthur replied.

Tilly was about to say something—and it would either be wise and kind or an absolutely brutal insult, those were the two choices with her—but whatever thought she had died in that moment, a choked noise in the back of her throat.

The front door opened, and in walked a man that Arthur had never seen before in his life. Arthur was certain about that. This newcomer, with long dark hair braided down his back, wide shoulders, warm eyes—he was memorable. He was also many other adjectives, none of which came to Arthur’s mind, because he was an artist, a painter—he would leave the pretty words to Mary-Beth. But Arthur itched to draw this man—just charcoal on thick paper, realistic, simple—because he had the kind of eyes and jaw and shoulders that deserved to be immortalized on paper.

Arthur was still thinking about how he would draw this man— _sitting, one knee bent, an elbow resting on that knee, hand in his hair, neck turned_ —as he approached. Thankfully, Tilly, who had been in charge of the register for most of the morning, was not so distracted, bless her. She was behind the register with her customer service face on in a flash.  

”Good morning, welcome to Van der Linde’s Coffee and Tea. Is this your first time here?”

“It is.” The man said. Arthur was half expecting some incongruously high pitched noise to come from the man’s mouth, or something too breathless, because this man needed to have some kind of inescapable flaw, but no, even his voice was perfect. Who the hell was this man?

“Well, If you have any questions about our menu, or our coffee, feel free to ask. And if you’re here looking for some quiet, the tables and couches at the back are the reserved quiet space, but if you’re looking for a little more noise, feel free to sit anywhere else.”

That spiel was not part of the usual greeting for customers—most people just got a “good morning/good afternoon, how may I help you?”

“Thank you.” The man said, with a polite smile and a small nod. “I would like a large Americano, and a slice of coffee cake, as well. For here, please.”

As Tilly swiped the man’s card, Mary-Beth retrieved a slice of coffee cake, leaving Arthur to the espresso machine and the man’s drink.

A minute later, the man said another thank you and gave the three—now four, with Sean’s lazy return—employees a polite smile, and took his breakfast and his coffee with him to the back of the cafe.

Once the man had set himself up at a table twenty-five feet away, Mary-Beth stepped in between Arthur and the front counter and wormed her way around to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Tilly.

“I want to sit on that man’s face.” She stage whispered, her tone serious.

“Mary-Beth Gaskill!” Tilly said, her face full of mocking genteel outrage.

Arthur groaned, and aimlessly wiped up a spill that did not exist on the countertop with a cleaning rag.

“I know, Tilly. I don’t mean to objectify this man, who I know has thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams and independence and agency, and I’m certain he has a rich inner life, but he is very attractive and I would like him to be involved with my inner life, if you know what I mean—“

“What are you two gossiping about?” Sean asked, not happy for anyone to conduct a conversation without his direct participation.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Arthur said, turning to put himself between the girls and Sean and any chance of continuing that line of conversation.

Of course, he couldn’t blame Mary-Beth, but… there were so many other things they could talk about. Things that wouldn’t be an absolute disaster if the customer in question just happened to overhear them.  Good lord, even Dutch couldn't talk their way out of that lawsuit.  Or find a way to get those nasty internet reviews taken down. 

“To change the subject away from anyone’s sex lives,” Tilly said, turning towards Arthur and taping her bright pink nails on the counter. “I need to ask you a favor. My friend Jenny has a friend named Lenny—“

“Lenny and Jenny,” Arthur snickered, nodding along, so glad to have a less inappropriate conversation to lead into.

“Exactly. They’re not dating—or, they are, but they haven’t realized it yet. Anyway, Lenny’s a freshman, and a studio art major. He’s really admired the works of yours that he’s seen, and was wondering if you would look at his portfolio and give him some suggestions.  He really likes your impressionist style.”

“Sure.” It wasn’t the first time an art student had tracked him down to ask for advice—far from it.  The faculty in the art department at MacAlister, where Arthur himself had gone to school, encouraged students to reach out to local artists, so Arthur had pretty much memorized the lecture he gave them about his own art style. “You know my schedule here. Let Lenny know where and when he can find me.”

“Will do. Thanks, Arthur. You’re pretty cool for an old man.”  

“You shut your mouth, Miss Tilly.”

She could call him old all she wants, but she'd still be one of Arthur's favorite employees. 

For the rest of the morning shift, thankfully, the three of his employees were thankfully much more subdued—in fact, when the very attractive man packed up and left his quiet table in the back of the shop, not a word was said from any of them as the man walked past the counter and out the door.  Still, Arthur was counting down the minutes until John came in to take over for the afternoon shift, and he could go home and take a nap.  

Arthur deserved a nap.  Naps were Arthur's favorite form of self-care.  


	3. Unburying Lost Possibilities, Like Dinosaur Bones

By the time Monday came around, enough of the snow had been cleared from the roads and driveways of the town that no one had any excuse not to go about their normal daily lives.

By early afternoon, when Arthur went in to take over for John as manager, the glass display was nearly empty of pastries and sandwiches, and they were completely out of earl grey and rooibos tea. Clearly, the biblical swarms of locusts had descended on that Monday morning, glad to be free their houses and looking for a caffeine or sugar boost to get them through their day.

Kieran, the nervous little fellow that Arthur was trying his very best to like, was the only other person scheduled to work with him that afternoon. After he made a few comments about how busy the lunch rush had been, Arthur sent him to the back to wash the remaining batch of dirty plates and mugs while Arthur managed the register and drink.

And in many ways, Arthur was glad that Kieran wasn’t the one out front when everyone’s least favorite member of the Horseshoe Overlook business community came to get his afternoon coffee.  Kieran was not ready to deal with  _him_ alone.  

Arthur Morgan was not a violent man. Sure, he could throw a damn good punch, and he had been in a couple of bar fights, but he never instigated them. But some long-repressed primal part of him really, really wanted to punch Micah Bell’s smug face.

Micah Bell owned the gun store across the street. He wasn’t in one of the storefronts owned by Dutch and Hosea, but he still had been trying to get chummy with Dutch for months. Ever since he set up shop about 6 months ago, he’d been trying to push his way into conversations with Dutch, he’d been inviting himself places where Dutch was going to be, and he had a tendency of dropping by whenever Dutch was in the coffee shop himself.

Also, he was a rat bastard with no manners and Arthur couldn’t stand him.

“I’ll have a medium dark roast, to go, cowpoke.” Micah said, dropping his money on the counter.

_Arthur wears cowboy boots and a flannel shirt to work once, and he’s cowpoke forever._

“Sure.” Arthur replied, meaning in his heart of hearts, _go fuck yourself._ He poured Micah’s coffee and made a big, long show about making sure the lid was securely on the paper cup, just to fuck with Micah and then slid it across the counter with the tips of his fingers, trying to avoid any chance of skin to skin contact with the man.

Micah took his coffee, looked around the room like he was the lord of all he surveyed, and then left. As he was leaving, he stopped to hold the front door open—Arthur was about to yell at him for letting the cold air in when he realized Micah was holding the door open for Susan, who had come to restock the tea supply.

And Micah was, as always, taking the opportunity to flirt with her.

“My queen has returned to her castle.” Micah said, giving Susan the ugliest goddamn smile Arthur had ever seen.

“Thank you, Mr. Bell.” Susan said, terse, walking right past him and into the coffee shop, her arms loaded with a giant box. Micah, bewildered, let the door close behind her and Arthur watched as he turned and crossed the street to go back to his own store.

“Good fucking riddance.” Arthur muttered as Micah Bell disappeared inside of his store.

Arthur couldn’t see it, but he could feel Susan glaring at him. “Don’t you swear in my shop,” he heard her chastise. Arthur turned around to give her a hand as she unloaded boxes and boxes of tea bags, all of her own personal tea blends created just for the coffee shop. “But I agree. Good fucking riddance. I’m willing to campaign for stricter gun control laws just to move that man out of town.”

“If only.”

Arthur called Kieran out from the back to manage the counter while he and Susan re-stocked both the stores of tea behind the counter and back in the storeroom, and caught up with each other’s lives. Susan told Arthur about her obnoxious neighbors, who recently threw a Saint Patrick's Day party that lasted well into the night, and then had raccoons carry the resulting overflow of garbage into her yard. Arthur confessed to Susan that a regular customer, Mickey, had come in with his new service dog earlier, and it made Arthur wonder if he was finally ready to get another dog after losing his dog, Copper, more than a year ago.

As they finished up, they talked a little about the coffee shop itself; the customers, the prices, the partnership with Abigail and Simon’s bakery two doors down the road, Dutch’s plans for what they could do next—thankfully, they had talked Dutch out of his idea of hosting open mic nights. _No thank you_. Susan was as pleased as she ever was with the coffee shop, and left Arthur with a motherly kiss on the cheek.

For several easy hours, Arthur and Kieran worked being the counter, as a steady stream of customers coming in and out of the door. Thankfully, Micha made no reappearance, and they were just busy enough that Kieran’s conversational skills were not stretched to the limit.

Kieran was telling a rambling story about growing up on a horse farm when lo and behold, John and Abigail walked through the front door.

“Can’t stay away from this place, huh?” Arthur said, taking the travel mug Abigail held in her outstretched hand, and filled it up with her usual light roast.

John had worked the morning shift, and Monday's were supposed to be Abigail’s day off from work at the bakery, but Abigail never really had a day off.

“We needed to order a few things from our dairy supplier. Simon’s real busy with a big order of bread and I can’t trust Uncle with ordering, not after last time.” Abigail said, rolling her eyes and leaning against the counter, while John left her side to join Arthur and Kieran behind the counter to make his own drink.

“Last time, he ordered the wrong kind of butter.” John said, as if the idea of there being more than one type of butter was a joke to him.

“We don’t use salted butter for anything, John, we add our own salt to control the flavor. Just because you’ve already killed your taste buds with the weird things you eat, it doesn't mean that the rest of us can't tell the difference between unsalted and salted butter.” Abigail paused her rant only to accept her coffee from Arthur with a smile that lit up her tired green eyes.

“Even I knew that.” Rolling his eyes, Arthur jabbed a perfectly friendly elbow towards John.

“Oh, you shut up.”

“Play nice, boys.” Abigail shook her head, too familiar with what kind of nonsense was normal between the two of them. “Do you have a moment to catch up?”

Arthur looked at Kieran, who was taking care of the few bills John had handed to him for his and Abigail's coffee. Kieran nodded—he could handle himself for a few minutes, especially since Arthur wasn’t expecting another rush of customers any time soon.

“Sure.”

He left the counter one step behind John, and followed the Marstons as they took a seat at a nearby two-person table, not even bothering to remove their heavy winter coats.  He stood close, between them along the one edge of the little table.  

“So, Jack has a sleepover planned this Friday night.” Abigail said, one finger picking at a spot of flaking paint on her travel mug, playing casual.

“You want to come over and keep us distracted?” John asked, his voice just loud enough to be heard over Javier’s playlist.

Well, that was the first time they had asked him in public.

Arthur ran through his memory to make sure he didn’t have any other Friday night plans. Oh, no, of course he didn’t, because he was a sad, nearly middle-aged man. But he did have a meeting with someone who wanted to commission something…

“I’ll be free after 6.” He answered, suddenly aware of all of the times someone had ever told him how his face telegraphed all of his emotions, and sincerely, sincerely hoping his face wasn’t showing the fluttering butterflies in his stomach.

Abigail and John shared a brief, pleased smile, and John winked at Arthur and said, “I’ll have dinner ready for 6:15, then.”

“Alright. You aren’t too concerned about Jack wanting to come home in the middle of the night?”

“Oh, no.” John laughed, and Abigail immediately rolled her eyes, moving her whole head as she did. “He told us already that he is a mature young man nowadays, and he has learned how to overcome his homesickness and anxiety and he intends to make it through the entire sleepover without needing to call and talk to us, or come home.”

“Yeah,” Arthur chuckled, hearing the words as if Jack had said them himself. “Sounds like him.”

The three of them passed the next 5 minutes talking about everything from Arthur’s plans to finally renovate his kitchen to Dutch’s latest idea for a local charity organization that would never take off because eventually, Dutch’s attention would be diverted by a completely different social issue.

When the Marstons said their goodbyes so that they could go pick Jack up from school, Arthur returned to the counter, and then successfully made some light and pleasant conversation with Kieran. 

The rest of the week passed quickly. Tuesday and Wednesday were Arthur’s days off from VDL’s, so he spent his days, from dawn to dusk, in the studio he created in his garage apartment, working on commissions and on his own inspired pieces. On Wednesday night, he and his next-door neighbor, Sadie, went to a local bar for dinner and a few drinks.  Sadie, a lawyer, complained about a few problematic clients, while Arthur told stories of the coffee shop's most execntric guests.  

By Thursday afternoon, Arthur was back in the coffee shop, where he worked with Kieran and Mary-Beth, who made a surprisingly efficient pair.

By Friday morning, as Arthur drove to work, he looked around and saw that most of the previous weekend’s snow had finally melted.

Friday afternoon saw Arthur video chatting with a potential client from Germany.

Friday evening saw Arthur laying on his side, one arm tossed around John and Abigail, all three of them exhausted and breathless and sweating.

“So,” Abigail said, pushing a few sweaty locks of hair out of her eyes. “We were supposed to talk to you before having sex,” she took a deep breath to finally steady her breathing, “but John jumped the gun a little.”

“And by gun,” Arthur asked, opening his eyes to the dim light of the Marston’s small master bedroom, “you mean my dick?”

“Shut up.” John mumbled, still lying face down, his words muffled by his pillow.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean, anyway—John, could you sit up for this?”

“Five more minutes, please, darling.”

“Fine.” Abigail said, her tone firm. Arthur opened his eyes a little further, and pushed himself up on his arm, so he could see over John’s limp body. Abigail, who has been laying on her own side, mirroring Arthur, sat up, supporting herself with both of her still shaking arms. Her eyes, though, were steady. “John and I were wondering—we were wondering if you wanted to date us.”

_That—that wasn’t what Arthur was expecting._

“We know, we know it was originally just sex, between the three of us."  

_He’s known both of them for years, considered both of them among his closest friends for nearly as long as he’d known them._

“And if this makes things more complicated than you want, it’s fine, you can tell us no.”

_Arthur assumed she was just going to ask him to watch Jack for a weekend or something like that._

“Or if you don’t want to say yes because John is useless and doesn’t have the manners or the guts to participate in this conversation with the adults in the room—“

John pulled one hand out from underneath his own chest, and pointed at Arthur with a sharp jab.

“It’s his fault I’m useless.”

_Arthur had been wanting to take Jack to the zoo down and Saint Denis for a while. The city itself was a pain in the ass, but it was really nice, the animals were well taken care of. The kid would love it—_

“So if you do my want this, tell us no, and we won’t hold it against you. If us even asking makes you uncomfortable, and you want to stop having sex with us, that’s fine too.”

_Arthur had tried taking Jack camping once, but he really wasn’t interested. He was too young I appreciate an art gallery. Maybe he could take Jack fishing someday? He could ask Dutch and Hosea to come along, if they had free time. That would be nice._

“So you don’t have to do anything you don't want to, of course. We—we were just talking, and it seemed like we might be able to take another chance at what we all missed out on, before. Unburying a lost possibility is what John called it.”

 _Like a paleontologist_ , Arthur nearly said. But he didn’t, because he had some control over himself. Now wasn't the best time to talk about dinosaurs.

All thoughts of fun bonding moments with little Jack stopped dead in their tracks. Arthur, through no fault of Abigail’s, felt his chest compress as he remembered.

Remembered meeting Abigail right after Mary called off their engagement. He pushed aside the immediate attraction he had for her because of course, he just wanted her as a rebound, and she didn’t deserve that.

Realizing one drunken night nearly a decade ago that he was infatuated with John, who was there for him every single time he drank too much in the aftermath of the worst moment of his life. But John didn’t deserve a drunk, depressed emotional wreck like Arthur.

Feeling elated when John and Abigail realized their feelings for each other. They fought and bickered a lot, in the early days, but they settled down, and they made each other happy.  They made each other better.  And when their relationship got steadily more serious, Arthur had chalked up the subtle melancholy he felt to the fact he was coming to terms with the fact that he would be lonely, forever.

And here he was, older and lonelier than ever.

Arthur opened his mouth, but could not think of a single thing to say. All he could do was stare at Abigail’s pretty, freckled face, her jaw set and her face as fearless as always. Even flushed and sweaty, her hair a tousled mess, she looked like she was ready to sweep in and save the day.

“And we can handle this however you want to. You know—we don’t exactly have to be very public about it, at first, if you don’t want to be accused of being a homewrecker until you’re sure this is what you want. And you can only make plans with one of us at a time, or both if that is easier for you—or, both, both. You know what I mean. And no matter what, even if you say no or we try and it turns out to be a miserable idea, you’ll always Jack’s Uncle Arthur.”

Abigail was one of the most fearless people he’d ever met.

Arthur snapped his mouth shut, and swallowed, hoping his tongue and lips would no longer be as dry as a New Austin desert.

It didn't work.  His tongue and lips were still parched.  

But still, he answered.

“Sure.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.” He cleared his throat. His arm was beginning to ache from holding himself up one side for too long— _was this a sign_ _he need to go to the gym more?_ —but now was not the time to look away.

Abigail smiled, her lips crooked and perfect.

“Oh. I—I’m glad. I know you have Tuesday off from the coffee shop. Do you want to get dinner either this week or the next? Maybe we could head over to that little French bistro in Strawberry? I’ve been wanting to go there for ages, but John’s been dragging his heels.”

Strawberry was close enough to get there, and far enough away that the likelihood of Dutch and Hosea showing up and interrupting his date as a _complete_ _coincidence_ was much less likely than if they went to somewhere in Limpany, or Valentine. Because that precise thing had happened so many times, when Arthur was young.

Arthur nodded again, feeling oddly pleased with himself and maybe a little flattered as Abigail lifted her eyes smiled again.

“You tell me what time to meet you, and I’m yours.”

Her smile only grew wider, her green eyes sparkling in the dim light.

John, with no little effort, turned his head to the side to free his voice from the barrier of the pillows and talk to his wife.

“You really gonna ask a man on a romantic date right after that?”

“The—the endorphins gave me courage.” Abigail answered, giving John a gentle shove on the shoulder before she sat up and swung her legs off of the bed. “I need to go clean up.” And on unstable legs, she padded her way over to the bathroom, and shut the door behind her.

As the door latched, John finally turned over, flopping into the part of the bed his wife had just left empty.

“Arthur,” his voice was still unusually hoarse as he pushed himself to sit up. He made eye contact for just a moment, and then looked away, towards the open space of the floor. “I, I know I’m not really good at talking about feelings—“

“No shit.”

John rolled his eyes and continued.

“But, I. I think this will be worth it. To try, anyway. You’re real important to both of us.”

John grabbed Arthur’s hand where it lay in the middle of the bed, and squeezed it, once, before letting go.

Arthur nodded, not even sure if John was looking at his face.

“Anyway, so you go out one Friday?  Just the two of us? I know you work Saturday mornings, but, uh. I thought we could do something.”

Arthur couldn’t resist.

“You really gonna ask a man on a romantic date right after that?”

John started laughing, and then he laid back onto his side, turned away from Arthur. He grabbed Arthur’s arm, wrapped it around himself, and nested closer, becoming the little spoon.

“What the hell do you mean? There’s nothing in this world more romantic than having you fuck me while I’m fucking my wife.”

Arthur snorted and started giggling as he pulled John even closer and held him around his thin waist. When Abigail returned to bed and pulled the blanket over the three of them and Arthur turned off the bedside lamp, the two men absolutely refused to explain what was so funny, even as tears of laughter prickled at their eyes.  As the three of them fluffed and squished their pillows into comfortable positions, John and Arthur smiled at Abigail's half-hearted barbs and complaints about how they were keeping secrets from her, and snickered at the increasingly pathetic names she called them.  

Arthur fell asleep last—as he always did, no matter who was sleeping in the same bed or the same room as him—and as he listened to John and Abigail's breathing slow and steady as they drifted to sleep, he started to feel a little confused.  He should be anxious about this.  He'd been anxious years ago, when a tipsy and silly Abigail had teased John about how she suspected that John had always had a thing for Arthur, and John retorted by accusing Abigail of having a thing for Arthur, and Arthur was worried some disastrous argument would occur there and then, over dinner in the Marston's old apartment (that disaster was avoided in the strangest way possible, with Abigail, the bravest of them all, suggesting that first threesome.)  That had made him anxious—and rightfully so, in his mind.  Lots of things made him anxious.  This, didn't. 

As he finally felt his eyelids drift closed, blocking out the light of the streetlamps filtering through the crack in the curtain, Arthur's final thought was  _eh, give a few days, Morgan._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I mean, I told you this wasn't going to be a slow burn. If this feels rushed or weird to you, don't worry--we'll be getting more into the backstory of the relationship between John, Arthur, and Abigail as the story goes on. It's just that this is going to be a pretty busy fic, so this genuinely seemed like the best time to establish their relationship. 
> 
> Also, there may or may not be full on smut in this fic--most to all sex scenes will be the "fade to black" style, because I can and do write smut, but... slowly. And I wanted to keep this fic fast.


	4. A Quiet Night

A few days later, on Thursday afternoon, Arthur was standing behind the counter at the coffee shop, helping Tilly study for her European art history exam. Despite his many reassurances that she seemed well prepared, she made him rattle off name after name of a painting or statue and, time after time, in between customers and while they were preparing orders, she would recite all of the information she needed to know—name, artist, provenance, materials, whatever.

Tilly only gave Arthur a break when, midway through their afternoon together, a young man in a bright orange coat came through the door, looking around as if he had no idea where he was.

“Oh, hey,” she said, in the middle of rattling off some details about a painting by Caravaggio, and waving her hand towards the newcomer. Holding her hands around her mouth, she called “Lennnnnny!” her voice just a notch or so away from shouting.

As the young man’s head swung towards the counter and the two employees standing behind it, Tilly turned back to Arthur and said, “It’s a bit of an inside joke. Anytime we see Lenny, we have to shout his name like that.”

“Yeah, the other customers really appreciated that.” Arthur said, as he checked around the room. A few customers looked confused by the sudden yelling, but none seemed upset, thankfully.

“Sorry.” Tilly muttered, as the young man reached the counter. “Lenny!” She said, her tone bright, but her voice significantly quieter. “Lenny, this is Arthur Morgan, baristo and painter extraordinaire. Arthur, this is Lenny Summers.”

“Good to meet you.” Arthur held a hand over the edge of the marble counter. Lenny took it and shook it, eagerly, with a strong grip.

“Yeah, thank you so much, I, uh, really appreciate it.”

“No problem.” And then he turned back to Tilly. “Are you okay to man the counter yourself? I’ll come right back if a line forms.”

Tilly gave him an exaggerated wink and pushed her books and notes aside to take her place behind the register.

“I’m one of the best employees you got, Arthur Morgan. I got this.”

Arthur then asked Lenny if he wanted anything to drink, and he politely declined with a shake of his head and thanks to Arthur for asking.

Arthur pointed Lenny to the table closest to the counter and brought his own cup of coffee that he had been sipping at for half an hour. He couldn’t leave Tilly for long, and Lenny knew that. The young man didn’t have much of a portfolio to bring with him at college, so he and Arthur had just decided to talk.

Arthur sat in one of the chairs that Dutch and Susan had picked precisely because they were comfortable but not too comfortable that guests wouldn’t want to get up and get a refill of their drink if they were planning on staying all day, and settled in. Lenny dropped his bag onto the adjacent chair, took off his bright orange coat and listened as Arthur started his usual spiel.

Arthur told Lenny about how he had learned to draw from a few books he checked out of the library as a kid, how he had stuck with it but never told anyone about it until he was older. He gave painting a try after a rough patch in his life, and Arthur took to it like a duck to water. With his drawings, he never seemed happy with whatever he did—he found some small flaw in everything, no matter how many times he practiced or erased. But with painting, it seemed like he had more control over shape and light and color. He found his niche early.

And then he went to MacAlister, majored in art and art history, and managed to catch the eye of a few friends of friends, colleagues of colleagues, and a few notable artists saw his work. At that point, he had settled into to painting a strange combination of landscapes and domestic scenes, like Monet and Cassatt and his other favorite impressionists. And then he worked, and then he worked, and then he worked enough that he could afford a decent car and a house and to pay his bills from the money he made from painting, which was all he ever wanted. Throughout his story, Lenny was an attentive audience, nodding along, laughing, smiling, and commiserating.

“So. Got any questions?”  Arthur asked, finishing off his story with a sip of his coffee.

“Why did you pick MacAlister? Why not art school?”

“Eh, I didn’t think I would fit in at an art school. I toured a few art schools, but none of them felt right. So in all honesty, I kind of gave up looking for the right school. I grew up here in Limpany, so MacAlister wasn’t exactly some inspired choice, but it was right here, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to apply—the art department wasn’t as respected when I went there, but it was still pretty good. What about you?”

“Oh, I applied in the hopes of getting one of the first-generation student scholarships. I was raised by my dad and my grandpa, two of the smartest men I’ve ever met, but neither one ever graduated high school, and we don’t have much money to spare, so I got really lucky. Even if the course load is kicking my ass, I can’t imagine having gone anywhere else."  And then he sort of shook his head, and looked around at the buzzing cafe around him. "And, actually—I don’t want to sound rude, but why do you work here?”

Arthur shook his head, _Lenny couldn’t be rude if he tried._

He finished off his coffee and shrugged.

“Couple of reasons, really.  Dutch is family, for one. Having a reason to get out of my house is a good enough reason, and the medical insurance is a better deal than if I paid for it on my own. But really—I work better at everything when I’m busy. My painting, my work here, doing things like paying my bills on time. I’m shit at time management, so being busy keeps me on track.”

Lenny laughed, twice, loud and clear as a bell.

“Oh, man, I get that.” Lenny started complaining about his courseload which, despite having been in exactly the same position himself, years ago, Arthur provided absolutely no sympathy for Lenny, and instead, made a few gentle barbs about how Lenny was just a kid and didn’t understand _real work,_ jokes that Lenny took with grace and a fair amount of eye-rolling.

Arthur liked this kid. He liked talking to him, he liked Lenny’s ideas and enthusiasm. But a large group of students walked through the front door and dropped their books and bags at a table and slowly made their way into the line forming at the register. He couldn’t desert Tilly, and said as much to Lenny. As Lenny gathered up his own things, Arthur decided to extend an offer to Lenny.

“Listen, do you want to meet a lot of other artists in the area at once?”

Lenny raised his eyebrows, unsure of what Arthur was suggesting, but nodded.

“Tomorrow night, Charles Chatenay is debuting a small collection of his sketches in a gallery downtown. I got a spare ticket, if you want to meet me there?”

Lenny’s eyes widened, and he started nodding even as Arthur could see in his eyes that he was still searching for words.

“That—that would be great. I would really appreciate it.”

Arthur nodded. Lenny seemed like a good kid, and now, he didn’t have to attend the opening alone—and since he had a young, inexperienced artist with him, he would have the excuse of needing to talking to Lenny to get him out of conversations with people he didn’t want to talk to. It was a perfect plan.

“Alright. Let me find a piece of paper so that I can write down the gallery’s name for you. The event starts at 7 tomorrow night—you can just show up and tell them you’re my guest.  It'll probably be the owner, Hamish, at the door, and he knows me.”

Lenny kept nodding and his smile kept growing, his dark eyes bright with excitement.

For a moment, Arthur wrestled with whether or not he should dash Lenny’s dreams there and then—gallery openings were usually boring, insufferable occasions. But he decided he should let Lenny have his enthusiasm—even if it ended up being a boring evening spent listening to speeches from Charles Chatenay about his most absurd philosophies and escaping conversations with self-absorbed idiots, as Arthur suspected it would be, he’d let Lenny draw his own conclusions.

The next day, as Arthur left the quiet of the studio above his garage behind and went to clean up and dress for the gallery opening, Arthur came to the conclusion that it was going to be a pretty quiet night—or, as quiet as any room that contained Charles Chatenay could possibly be. The gallery owner, Hamish, was a good friend, and when he messaged Arthur to confirm that he was bringing a guest, he gave Arthur a few hints at who was on the guest list. Most of the guests were the subjects of Chatenay’s portraits, and, compared to some other openings, there were not many other artists. Perhaps that would not be as interesting for Lenny’s sake, but it would hopefully avoid any of the cattiness that tended to occur whenever too many artists were in the same room.

The gallery in question was one of about a half dozen in Limpany. It was small, taking up the first floor of a converted turn-of-the-century house only a block away from the riverfront. Arthur parked his car a block away, and arrived about fifteen minutes before things were supposed to start. He was hoping to be there before Lenny got there, so he wouldn't have to figure out what to do without Arthur.

Hamish, as expected, let Arthur right in the door. The old man, an accomplished jewelry maker and an old friend of Hosea’s, asked a few polite questions about Arthur and his life, while Arthur asked about his stubborn but very stately shepherd dog, Buell. Despite (or, perhaps, because of) his prosthetic leg, Hamish was quite an active man and had, more than once, tried to get Arthur to go big game hunting with him and Buell. Arthur had yet to agree to go, and couldn’t imagine that changing anytime soon.

But Hamish had plenty of things to do there in the lobby, so Arthur bid him a quiet goodbye, and walked into the gallery space-proper.

And then he nearly turned and walked out.

On the well-lit white walls were sketches upon sketches of naked people. More than thirty of them. And of course, each and every one of them was posed so that their naked ass or exposed privates were the focus of the picture. Everywhere Arthur looked, there were asses of every shape, size, and color; penises both erect and not, cut and not; and vulvas, some hairy and some hairless, and most of them framed by their owner’s legs that had been bent in some unnatural yoga pose or ballet position.

_For fuck’s sake._

Oh, Arthur should have known. _Sure_ , just invite the college kid he’d just met to Charles Chatenay’s gallery opening, as if Arthur hadn’t always suspected that Charles was going to do a completely nude gallery show someday and that, of course, it would be in Limpany, and not a bigger city, like Saint Denis or New York or Chicago where these things were more passé.

_Son of a bitch._

Well, all Arthur could do now was hope that Lenny took it all in good spirit and—

_Oh dear lord._

Casting his eyes across the scattered group of people who had arrived early, Arthur remembered what Hamish had told him. Most of the people on the guest list were the subjects of Chatenay’s portraits and their plus ones for the night.

Arthur was much less concerned with how Lenny was going to take the gratuitous nudity, and more concerned about how the guests of the subjects were going to take it. Charles preferred not to work with experienced professional models, he liked working with “real” people, the type of people whose friends and family weren’t used to seeing their naked body framed on the wall.

Well. This could be fun.

Arthur grabbed a complimentary glass of wine and took a sip, trying very hard to relax.

Looking back around the room, a few familiar people caught his eye. One was Charles Chatenay himself, who one of those fairly small people who had so much presence that they seemed much larger than they were. Also, his voice easily carried, which certainly made him noticeable.

He would get a polite conversation with Charles out of the way first.

Arthur liked Chatenay, as a person and as an artist. But Charles was pretty good at making Arthur forget that fact. Arthur waited on the edge of the shorter Frenchman’s periphery as Chatenay talked to a small audience about one of his many, many affairs with a married woman.  His bombastic voice and absolute lack of concern for other people’s relationships nearly inspired Arthur to just turn around and walk right out of the gallery and go home. He had some ice cream in the freezer that he was really looking forward to enjoying—but no, he made a plan, and he needed to follow that plan like a goddamn adult.

After a moment, Charles realized Arthur was there, and pushed passed a distracted-looking woman to greet him with a kiss on the cheek and a loud cry. It had been a while since their paths had last crossed.

“Arthur! Mon frère! I am so happy that you have come tonight.”

“Good to see you too, Charles.”

Charles regaled him with all of the information about his collection that he thought Arthur should know, including something about the naked body being the only source of truth left the in the world. Arthur had completely zoned out by Charles’ second sentence and was just nodding along every now and then. Arthur was paying a little more attention to the man’s works than to his words; specifically, he was looking over Charles' shoulder at a drawing of a nude man who was laying on the grass, his body in a rigid pose with his legs and arms held completely straight, like he was going down a water slide, while an alligator was drawn next to him on the grass, the lizard’s body perfectly parallel to the man’s. Arthur hoped that one wasn’t _truthful_ , in the sense that he hoped Charles hadn’t actually made the naked man lay next to an alligator for the sake of a picture.

Charles bid Arthur adieu after he brought his monologue an end, none of which Arthur remembered. Being the belle of the ball, so to speak, always went to Charles’ head and made him just a little ruder and just a little more flighty than he usually was.

Free from Charles’ spotlight, Arthur said a quick hello to a professor and a doctor he knew from around town and gave a friendly greeting to a man that Arthur recognized as a regular from the coffee shop. There were a few more people who he wanted to talk to, but before he could make up his mind about who to speak to first and strike up a conversation with them, he saw a figure in a distinctive orange coat walk in from the little lobby.

“Lenny!” Arthur said, raising his voice just loud enough to be heard over the crowd of the three or four dozen guests who had already arrived. That got Lenny’s attention easily enough, so the two of them met in the middle of the floor.

“Hey, Arthur.”

“Well, this is it.”

Lenny looked around the room, at the blatantly naked portraits on the walls, and nodded approvingly, before his face cracked into a smile.

“It’s a lot of figure drawings, isn’t it? He said with a nervous chuckle.

“It certainly is,” Arthur said, his voice dark.

“I looked at some of Mr. Chatenay’s works online. He had some nude drawings and paintings, but this is, uh...” Lenny’s eyes darted from one penis and one vagina to the next.

“A lot. Yeah, I get it.” With a light hand on Lenny’s back, Arthur pointed him in Charles’ direction. Charles was holding court in the center of the room, speaking to a new batch of admirers. “Let me introduce you to the man of the hour, first. You can ask him about all of the nudity if you’re feeling brave.”

Arthur crossed the shining wooden floor, Lenny a step behind, looking a little anxious and a little eager. With a little wave of his hand, Arthur cleared his throat during a quick rest in Charles’ speech about something or other, and got the man's attention.

“Charles! There’s someone here I’d like you to meet. This is Lenny Summers, an art student from MacAlister I invited along. Lenny, this is Charles Chatenay.”

Lenny held his hand out, just as a polite young man should, but Charles pushed past Arthur and went in directly for a hug.

“Ah, yes, an impressionable young mind!” He said, pulling back from the hug to examine the angles of Lenny’s face. “What marvelous bone structure you have, Monsieur Summers. Tell me, what do you know about _truth_?”

Lenny froze, his eyes wide and his mouth shut as Charles’ hand lingered on his chin. Arthur wanted to laugh, but didn’t, which surprised even himself.

“Uh...”

Charles continued on, undeterred.

“Tell me, are you a virgin?”

And that time, Arthur did laugh. He clapped a hand on Lenny’s back, said “you two have fun” while his laughter lingered in his voice, and walked away.

Lenny did not respond to Arthur. As he left, he heard Lenny ask Charles, “is this a trick question?”

Arthur’s destination was behind the little clump formed by Charles’ audience, closer to the front door. He wound his way through the little pockets of people chatting in the middle of the floor and the clumps of people admiring (or, maybe, some other word entirely) the works of art hung on the walls.

He interrupted a conversation between his old friend Charlotte and her husband Cal and a handful of people who were vaguely familiar to him, and spent about five perfectly decent minutes chatting with them.  Charlotte was a novelist, and Arthur had just finished entertaining her and the others with a story about a strange man with ginger hair and a port-wine stain birthmark who liked to bring his antique typewriter with him to the coffee shop when a slightly shorter figure in an orange coat appeared at his side.

“Was that some kind of teaching moment? Abandoning me with him?” Lenny asked, his voice skeptical.

“Did you learn something?”

Lenny stared at him and furrowed his brow.

“Maybe. But I’m not sure what I learned yet.”

“It’ll come to you eventually.” And then Arthur turned back to the others. “Charlotte, this is Lenny Summers, an art student at MacAlister. Lenny, this is Charlotte Balfour.”

Over the next half of an hour, Arthur introduced Lenny to more and more people, as more and more people arrived to see the gallery exhibition. Once Lenny had been introduced to all of the really important people—Arthur saved the best for last, and had Lenny meet Hamish after everyone else was checked off his imaginary list, and the two of them caught on like a forest fire. Social obligations in, they finally around the room and looked at the works of art with a casual eye. As they walked, Arthur explained a little bit about galleries, how gallery fees work, and who owed the few galleries in Limpany and the surrounding towns. As always, Lenny listened intently and asked intelligent questions.

That finished, Arthur admitted that there was really nothing else left to do, unless there were any pieces that Lenny really wanted to get a closer look at, which Lenny immediately denied. So Arthur led Lenny to a quiet spot in the far corner of the room, ready to continue imparting whatever wisdom he happened to have unto Lenny.

But only moments after Arthur and Lenny decided to start their own little observation post at the corner of the gallery, things started to change. The atmosphere in the room itself shifted.

It started with one man realizing that the naked woman pictured laying out on a blanket in a field of tall grasses and wildflowers was indeed his wife. His wife, apparently, had never bothered to tell her husband that she was going to pose nude for an artist, not even when they were on the way to see her life-sized backside hanging on a gallery wall.

Seconds later, a different woman realized that her husband was the naked man who had been sketched sitting on a stool in a way that had his crossed leg directing all of the viewer’s attention immediately to the man’s junk.

And then other voices chimed in. One young man realized that there was a portrait of his naked mother relaxing on a chaise lounge framed on the wall, and another man realized that the naked man drawn performing a series of advanced yoga poses was his husband.

Arthur opened his mouth, ready to say something profound to Lenny, but he actually had no idea what he should say. He thought he might say something about how, as much as he wanted to blame Charles for this, it was really more the fault of all of the people in the portraits for not warning all of their guests they were about to see art of their naked bodies immortalized on paper. It wasn’t Charles’ job to make sure wives and husbands and mothers and children knew what was going on.

But he didn’t really have a chance to say that, because the many questions from bewildered and shocked family members turned to accusations. One woman called another a _hussie_ , which was a word Arthur hadn’t heard in about twenty years, and one man yelled something about _buttocks_ , which, again, was a word Arthur didn’t think that people actually used in daily life. Back and forth, across the gallery, people raised their voices and made snide comments about the marriages of complete strangers, and the morals of the people in portraits. That none of these people seemed to see that Charles himself was at fault surprised Arthur and then, after a second thought, did not surprise him at all.

As their voices grew louder and louder, the arguing pairs grew closer and closer, pushing through the crowd and meeting in the middle, as if pulled by strong magnets, rather than just being pulled by their own petty anger. Arthur could see two—no, three—groups of people in the crowded room who were standing toe to toe, red in the face and yelling, while all around them, people stood back and watched in disbelief.

Arthur and Lenny were by no means close to any of the arguing pairs. And while they were both decently tall men, they both struggled to see through the crowd of heads that were bobbing and twisting from side to side in order to get a better look at the action. The only argument that Arthur could really see was between a tall young man in a hat—the one whose naked mother posed on the chaise—and a shorter bald man with a comically old-fashioned mustache. Over the clatter of the other arguments, Arthur could just barely make out the mustachioed man saying something about the tall man’s mother, and—

And in the blink of an eye, the man in a hat face’s turned completely red, and he threw the first punch.

Just as quickly, two other men thew two more punches. The people who had been previously shouting and accusing each other’s loved ones of cheating, of having loose morals, of being seduced by a slimy Frenchman had progressed to arguing with their fists. It was if the tall man in the hat had given everyone else permission to go feral.

For just the briefest moment, Arthur wondered if had just imagined this sudden brawl, but then Lenny’s shoulder brushed across his arm, and he realized, no, this was unfortunately real.

Arthur was on the other side of the room, and as two or three retaliatory punches were thrown, the crowd around the fighting pushed back, forcing him and Lenny even further away. Arthur watched as Hamish pulled the tall man in a hat away from his opponent, and a man that Arthur knew from the local bank and a tall woman who he knew worked in some office at the college pulled the other fights apart.

No one seemed particularly worse for wear, with just a couple of bruises, some ruffled hair, and a pair of glasses knocked askew as the only evidence of what bizarre thing had just happened.

Hamish was already barking out orders in his best military voice to separate the men and to get them out of the gallery. Wives, siblings, and a husband went to collect the fighters and pulled them by their arms into scattered spots on the floor, where brand new whispered arguments broke out once again.

Charles was already making some sort of speech to a small group of weary people, about how powerful his art was, how much power a nude human body had to elicit such animalistic expressions of anger and jealousy. _Yeah_ , it wouldn’t be too long until Mr. Charles Chateny started bragging about his skills in bed. Or talking about that time he took a shit on the counter at a crowded bar as an expression of “art”—he really liked to bring that one up a lot.

And that meant it was time to leave.

Arthur laid a hand on Lenny’s shoulder for a passing moment, and Lenny looked up at him, clearly trying to decide if he was going to be amused or disturbed by what he’d just seen.

“Come on, kid. Let’s get out of here before things get worse”

“Sure—I mean, we can just leave?”

“Yeah, the backdoor isn’t alarmed. This way, we don’t want to be here when things get worse. Charles is, well. He’s going to take this as the compliment of the highest regards. He’ll never shut up about it.”

Lenny nodded, still unsure, but he followed Arthur to the back of the gallery and through a plain white door marked with a glowing red emergency exit sign. Beyond that door was a tiny little landing at the base of a narrow staircase leading up and a heavy metal door immediately opposite. Arthur pushed that door open, and led Lenny out into the little alley behind the building.

They went around the corner of the brick building, walked down another, even more narrow alleyway, and back onto the main sidewalk in front of the gallery. In the familiarity of the streetlights, Lenny turned to Arthur, fluffed up his orange coat, and asked, “so, does that sort of thing usually—”

“No.” Arthur interrupted, shaking his head. Nothing like that had ever happened before, not at the many gallery openings he had ever been to. Although, if it was going to happen at anyone’s show, it would be Chatenay’s. “You know,” Arthur admitted, pulling his car keys from his pocket. “I thought this was going to be a quiet kind of night.”

“Well,” Lenny chuckled, shrugging. “Best laid plans and all that.”

Arthur groaned, his chest collapsing under the weight of… well, having to be social for an evening, and with the expectation that the next event with all of the other artists in the area was going to be rife with nothing but talk about this evening, the night three simultaneous fist fights had broken out because of Charles Chatenay’s nude sketches.

“Did—“ He paused, not certain what he wanted to ask Lenny. “Did you get anything of value from this? Did you meet any artists you thought were interesting? Did you learn anything, other than that the people of Limpany are… idiots?”

Lenny nodded, earnest again.

“I met some people whose works I already admire. And you have to admit, this will be a pretty good story to take back to my friends.”

“Yeah...” Arthur would have to share this story with his friends, too. John would love it, as would Sadie. Abigail would pretend not to be amused, but she would be.

Taking another deep breath, just to reset his brain, Arthur cast his eyes around the quiet Limpany street, and noticed the cold breeze coming from the river.  Above them, the sky was dark and cloudy. It was a little late to be out, for the business district of town. “So, do you need a ride back to campus?”

He looked a little startled at the offer, but Lenny shook his head.

“Oh, no, thanks, Arthur. My bike, Maggie, she’s parked just down the street. I’ll be back in 10 minutes, tops.”

It took Arthur a second to catch up.

“You named your bike?”

“Yeah?”

“Alright then. Well, stay safe. And I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, or learned something. Whatever the hell you did tonight.”

Lenny laughed one more time, and took two small steps in the direction of his bike—the opposite direction of Arthur’s car.

“It was eye-opening. Thanks again, Arthur. And thanks for agreeing to talk to me in the first place.” And then he turned, his back towards Arthur.

“No problem.”

Arthur walked slowly back to his car, occasionally turning to check and make sure no one had jumped out from an alley to mug Lenny on his walk to his bike. Of course, Limpany was a very safe town, especially in this area, where the most popular crimes were jaywalking and vandalism in the form of people sticking their gum onto the public trash cans. But, considering that there was just a fist-fight in an art gallery, anything could happen.

Lenny was right. It was an interesting night, if nothing else.    

(And after that chaos, Arthur was really, really looking forward to going home and finally eating that ice cream in his freezer.) 


	5. It Never Rains, It Pours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m posting this one now because I’ll be traveling tomorrow. I hope you like it—so promise the actual dating and more plot heavy chapters soon, but since I’ve been following the plot of the game in some ways, we’re still in the slower parts of in-game chapter 2... but I hope the fluff doesn’t bother you.

Saturday was a perfectly decent day for Arthur. The morning was spent running around behind the counter with Mary-Beth, Javier, and Kieran, all the while sending somewhat flirty messages to Abigail and John, who were just two doors down the street at the bakery.

It was easy to flirt with them. Maybe he’d always been flirting with them.

That evening, he had dinner with Dutch and Hosea and Molly at their large house on the cliff. The other men were apparently feeling nostalgic, and spent most of their dinner teasing Arthur about his most embarrassing moments as a teenager, which of course, they thought were a hysterical font of comedy. They were only slightly distracted by Arthur’s story of the disastrous gallery opening, and they didn't stop teasing until Arthur suggested that they all take their rescued greyhound, The Count, on a walk around the neighborhood, and Molly insisted that they all enjoy the peace and quiet and the sweeping view of the cliffs and trees around them.  Molly ended up taking Arthur's arm, letting Dutch and Hosea walk hand-in-hand in front of them with the dog so that she and Arthur could trade embarrassing stories about Dutch without him knowing. 

And then it was another Sunday morning, and this time, Arthur worked behind the counter with Tilly, Kieran, and Sean. With the sun shining and all but the largest piles of snow having melted over the past two weeks, life in Limpany had returned to normal.

There was, however, a bit of a lull late in the morning, as usually happened. All of the students who had plans to spend their Sunday morning studying in the shop were already seated with their drink at hand, and all of the townsfolk who had plans to meet up with a friend and talk over coffee, it seemed, had already done so. There was only a slow trickle of people who came in and ordered their coffees to go, on their way to work at the hospital or on their way home from an early church service. On most Sundays, Arthur knew that by the time Reverend Swanson, the eccentric minister of the Episcoplian church in town, came to visit and ordered his latte with four different flavored syrups in it, that the coffee shop would be slow until the noontime rush.

Tilly and Sean were in the kitchen, washing plates and mugs, and Kieran was in the process of cleaning up after a number of middle-aged men who left without bussing their own tables, as customers were so politely asked to do.

_It was always middle-aged men, wasn’t it?_

Arthur was in the middle of double checking stock behind the counter, even though he knew everything was going to be almost exactly the same as when he had checked half an hour ago, when he appeared.

Him.

_The unreasonably beautiful man._

He was wearing a different coat as he had two previous weekends, but the messenger bag slung across his shoulder, the leather gloves, and the long, thick hair that shined in the sunlight was exactly the same. Not that Arthur had tried hard to remember what this man looked like—he just had a good visual memory, it went with the job.

“Good morning.” Arthur said, as the man crossed the distance between the front door and the register.

“Good morning.” The other man answered with a small nods of his head. “I would like a large americano to go, please.”

“Of course.”

Arthur swiped the man’s card and immediately set about pulling the espresso and pouring the hot water. Arthur was silent as he made the man’s drink, certain the other man wouldn’t want to talk, and certain he had nothing particularly interesting to say.

“There you go.” He said, setting the paper cup down on the counter with the greatest care. “Have a nice day.”

“Thank you.” The other grabbed onto the cup but did not carry it away and leave through the door. Instead, he lingered, right there at the counter, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a bother, but are you Arthur Morgan?”

“Uh...” Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be an idiot. But why is he asking? Who could he be? “I am, actually. How can I help you?”

“I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Charles Smith.” Oh. _Oh_. “I’m going to be teaching photography and film at the college this summer—possibly longer. Since I’m going to be in town for a while, I thought I should introduce myself.”

“Oh,” Arthur said, echoing his earlier directionless thoughts. Famous travel photographer and occasional documentary cinematographer Charles Smith was in Limpany, at his coffee shop. “Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Charles.” Arthur held his hand over the counter, and Charles took it with a small nod. His hand was large and somehow warm, even through the leather glove.

“You as well.” Arthur released his hand, and Charles stood a little straighter. “I apologize if it seems like I’m ambushing you at work, but I prefer to introduce myself in person, and Albert Mason told me I could find you here.”

Despite the overlap in their artistic careers, that was not the name Arthur expected the other man to drop—maybe Charles Chatenay, maybe one of the town’s other artists pointed him in Arthur’s direction, but Albert was surprising. If only because Albert spent most of his days well beyond the reaches of the internet, in the wilderness somewhere on the four corners of the globe.

“Have you seen Albert lately?” Arthur asked, glad to have a tether of conversation to hold onto.

Charles shook his head, casting his eyes down at the counter for a moment, which just happened to allow Arthur to see how long and thick his eyelashes were. That was the sort of thing that he noticed, as an artist.

“I haven’t actually seen him, no. But I emailed him once I learned I would be teaching at MacAlister a few weeks ago, since I knew he went there.”

“And he actually replied to you?”

“Well, he was laid up on bed rest at the time.” Charles said slowly, letting Arthur’s mind fill with a million different potential disasters that could have befallen Albert—and Charles, knowing exactly what Arthur was thinking, shared a small smile. “He had major surgery on his knee after he fell out of a tree in Malaysia.”

Arthur rolled his eyes, and ran through his memories of Albert, of the endangered species he had the most sympathy for and which ones might live in Malaysia.

“Let me guess, Sumatran orangutans?”

Charles nodded, a tiny smile spreading across his lips.

“He got a lovely shot of a mother orangutan holding her week-old baby. We can only hope it will sell high enough to cover the medical bills from the surgery and month spent on bed rest.”

“Jesus. It’s, uh, been a few years since I’ve seen Albert, but we keep in touch. Part of me is glad to know he’s still the same Albert. Another part of me is horrified that he’s still the same.” Arthur said, laying his hands flat on the counter.

“Exactly. He mentioned that the two of you went to MacAlister at the same time. Were you and Albert friends?”

 _Well, how to answer that?_ Arthur, as usual, erred on the side of honesty.

“He’s an ex-boyfriend, I guess. But we’re still plenty cordial, and supportive of each other’s work.”

And then he regretted it, a second later, but only because he was certain that this very good looking man would interpreter that as a hint, as a suggestion. And it wasn’t. Arthur would never flirt with a complete stranger, even if they were a well-respected photographer and a friend of a friend and had perfect bone structure.

Charles nodded, his face not changing, not flinching, not displaying any sign of discomfort.

“He mentioned that a lot of your works are hung all over town. I admit I don’t know much about painting, but I really admire the landscape of the rock formation.” He gestured, with a wave of his hand, to the painting of Arthur’s on the wall opposite of the counter, behind him. He must have stopped to look at it the last time he was in the coffee shop, or, maybe, he’d been in while Arthur wasn’t working. And he liked it—that was nice. “Is that spot local?”

“Depends on how you define local. That’s Window Rock, just over the border to Ambarino—it’s just west of Cotarro Springs, if you know where that is.” Charles nodded, his eyes intent on Arthur’s face. “It’s not too difficult to get there, but it is a bit of a drive.”

“I’m actually working on making a list of places I would like to visit around here, and photograph. I would appreciate any recommendations you could make, if you’re comfortable with that. I promise I have no intentions of trying to plagiarize your portfolio with my photographs.”

Although he certainly appreciated Charles saying so, he wouldn’t have suspected him of it anyway. Charles seemed like the honest sort.

“No, no, I don’t mind. The first two places that come to mind are Moonstone Pond Park, up by O’Creigh’s Run, and Caliban’s Seat, just north of here, if you haven’t been there already. The lighting and the color and the angles of the landscape for the both of them—there’s a lot you can do.” _Well, congratulations,_ _Arthur,_ _that sounded half-intelligent._

Charles shook his head, just slightly.

“Actually, I haven’t been to Caliban’s Seat yet, but I would like to go soon. I’ve been a little busy unpacking and dealing with—people." He said with a distinct and relatable sigh. "But Albert recommended I go, although he advised against climbing up to the top.”

Arthur chuckled, and then felt a little self-conscious about it, so he looked down at the counter and swiped at an invisible stain, again.

“Caliban’s Seat is perfectly safe to climb. Albert just,” Arthur sighed, suddenly wishing that he had something a little more interesting he could comfortably talk about than his dorky old college friend. “He's Albert. When we were in college, we went with some friends to climb up. He got distracted by some eagles, got dizzy from looking up and nearly fell off the side.”

Charles smiled, softly, and nodded.

“I probably shouldn’t have taken his word for it.” And then he cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’’m short on time, so I have to go. But it was very nice to meet you, Arthur.”

“You too,” Arthur said, meaning it. In a totally professional sense. “Have a nice afternoon.”

Charles Smith took his coffee, turned on his heel, and left.

And then Arthur nearly jumped out of his skin as a small sound came from behind him—the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Arthur turned around and saw Tilly, her head tilted to one side, her arms crossed, her fingers of one hand tapping against her flannel-shirted arm, her face twisted into an exaggerated squint.

“What?” Arthur asked, brushing his hands clean of some imagined dirt as suddenly he felt defensive under Tilly’s glare.

“Were you just flirting with that customer? The customer that Mary-Beth wanted to do unspeakable things to?”

“No...” _Maybe_. “And I’m not exactly sure that sitting on his face is _unspeakable,_ since she wasn’t shy about speaking about it.”

Even though he thought it was a valid argument, Arthur regretted bringing that immediately. Judging by the way Tilly flinched, he was right to.

“Jesus, Arthur, I’m going to forget I ever heard you say that. Anyway, what do you want to call that, if it isn't flirting?”

“He—that—“ Arthur sighed and tried to unscramble his thoughts, fighting off his ever sense of embarrassment. “He wanted to introduce himself. He’s Charles Smith.”

He waited for the look of recognition on Tilly’s face, the one that never came.

“Okay?” She finally asked, dropping her arms and taking her usual spot at the register.

Arthur sighed again, this one longer and more drawn out than before.

“He’s a well-known photographer. Mostly nature and landscapes, things like that—lots of the national parks. But he did that series of photos about life and poverty on reservations a few years ago that everyone and their mother saw online.”

And there, finally, the was recognition. Tilly nodded eagerly.

“Yeah, I’ve seen that. What the hell is he doing in Limpany?”

Arthur wasn’t sure if he was allowed to mention that Charles would be teaching at MacAlister, so he hesitated. And in that time, Kieran rejoined the group behind the counter, clearly coming back from having taken out some of the garbage and recycling. 

“What is who doing in Limpany?” He asked, his voice as mousy as usual as he leaned against the back counter.

“Charles Smith.” Arthur said, hoping that maybe Kieran would know—

“Who is that?”

“Famous photographer.” Said Tilly, turning around from the register just to look at Kieran’s face as she provided the answer, before swinging back around again.

“Oh.”

“He did the series about life on Native American reservations that was really popular a few years back—“

“Oh, yeah.” Kieran nodded, understanding, and then stopped. “I’ve seen that. What is he doing in Limpany?”

And again, because these brats have the worst timing, from the corner of Arthur’s eye, Sean appeared. The front of his t-shirt had a large wet spot, presumably from managing the clean and dirty dishes. That, at least, bolstered Arthur's spirits.  

“What the hell is who doing in Limpany?” He asked, taking a moment to check his hair in the mirrored surface of the espresso machine.

“Charles Smith.” Arthur said, rolling his eyes. This conversation wasn’t getting easier.

“He’s a famous photographer.” This time, it was Kieran who provided that fact, as if he had always known everything about Charles Smith, famous photographer.

“Alright then, what the hell is he doing in Limpany?” Sean asked, his voice saturated with skepticism.

Arthur snapped.

 _“You know_ —you know there are some notable artists who live in Limpany, and a community of artists that has sprung up around the college.” 

“Okay...” Sean said, as he and Tilly stared blankly back at Arthur, while Kieran just looked a little confused. Arthur searched and searched for what he could possibly say to these three that didn’t sound conceited or condescending but would get his point across that, even if he didn’t know why exactly Charles was in Limpany, there was probably a good reason for him to be there, but then Tilly broke character. She started shaking and her eyes squinted shut, and had to turn completely away from Arthur and towards the jars of teabags as the first few giggles escaped. Sean’s borderline-obnoxious cackles followed a moment later, and finally, Kieran started to chuckle, nervously, like he wasn’t sure if what was going on was actually funny.

Arthur certainly didn’t think it was.

“Oh, I see.” Arthur mumbled, turning back to the customers sitting in the coffee shop, desperately hoping for someone to come and order something. “You shitheads think you’re funny.”

Later that evening, while Arthur was in his studio cleaning up some long ignored messes, his phone pinged with an alert—and then, as his hands were a little busy cleaning up some dried varnish he had spilled on a table almost a week ago—it pinged three more times.

Twenty minutes later, with the varnish finally removed, Arthur peeled off his rubber gloves and looked at his phone.

There were four separate messages from Abigail. Altogether, they read, _are you still free and willing to go LeClerk’s on Tuesday? I could be ready to meet you at 6:30, or I could try to_ _be_ _ready earlier, if you don’t want to stay out so late, old man :) and I promise, I will not be upset if you don’t want to go anymore, or if you would rather do something else…_ _but if you do, i’ll make the reservtion if you agree to drive_

Arthur scrolled up and down, through her messages, reading and re-reading them three times, imagining that Abigail was there to read them out in her own voice. He could hear her, trying to be understanding and relaxed, but her voice still hinting at the fact she knew damn well what she wanted his answer to be.

And he knew what his answer would be—but Arthur took a moment, tapped his fingers against his leg, and thought about how he could answer her and, well, flirt with her at the same time. Her messages, and how they read so clearly in her voice, had made him smile. So he wanted to make her smile in return—it was only fair.

 _you promised me a romantic night, so I’ll be there. I’ll pick you up at 6:30, unless I need to be there early to get a threatening talk about being on my best behavior from your husband_

Arthur sent the message, and then felt pretty pleased with himself. He actually felt like he was handling this whole thing well, for once in his life.

By the time Abigail responded, Arthur had turned out all of the lights in his studio and locked up, and went back into his house through the backdoor into the laundry room, and turned the corner into his bedroom and sat on the edge of his bed. His cat, Boadicea, scampered in after him, and dropped a brightly colored toy mouse at this feet before jumping up onto his lap and demanding scratches under her chin. When the screen of his phone finally lit up with a notification, Arthur could barely see it through the mass of fluffy ginger hair.

It took a moment to extract the phone from underneath Boadicea’s belly, but Arthur did it, and read the reply. There were a number of pink hearts punctuating her message.

_i’m glad and if anyone needs to give you a threatening talk about being on your best behavior, it’ll be me before you and john go anywhere together_

Arthur was halfway through reading her message when she sent another

 _although i’ve been trying to get you 2 to behave for years with no luck… I should know when to give up_

Smiling again, Arthur had to admit that she wasn’t wrong.

_Madame, I assure you that i’ll be a perfect gentleman to your husband but I can’t guarantee that he’ll be a gentleman back_

Abigail’s only reply was a winking emoji, and the message _oh, I know._

They wished each other a good night, and Arthur lifted Boadicea from his lap and relocated her to the foot of his bed so he could go into the bathroom and get ready to turn in for the night.

He was tired, so Arthur hoped he would fall asleep easily that night. But there were a number of thoughts that had been popping in and out of the foreground of his mind that may or may not keep him awake late into the night. Thankfully, Arthur always thought that there were few better things to do than contemplate his life while he was standing in front of a bathroom mirror, and trying to do anything but notice his few gray hairs and the signs of aging on his face.

There, in the safety and quiet of his recently-renovated bathroom, as he mindlessly brushed his teeth, Arthur could admit that he had some harmless attraction to Charles Smith. It could go nowhere, and it probably would go nowhere. What were the chances that Charles was interested in dating men? And he was only guaranteed to be in Limpany until the end of the summer, what if he wasn’t interested in dating or anything while he was here? And what are the chances that Charles was single in the first place?

What if Charles was polyamorous? Or wait, was he was open and accepting of the idea of polyamory, even he himself wasn’t, because John and Abigail—

_Stop it, Arthur._

That wasn’t exactly relevant, Arthur thought as he rinsed his mouth and toothbrush and started washing his face.

But it never rains, it pours, doesn’t it? That was a pretty good motto for Arthur life, where things all tended to go to shit all at once. But even in this case, where things were far from being shitty—Arthur meets a handsome and talented man within the same week that two of his best friends (friends that he certainly already loved, if not in a romantic sense, but where was the line between platonic and romantic? How thin and arbitrary was that line?) asked to date him.

Considering the circumstances, Arthur was fairly confident that Abigail and John would not expect total exclusivity from him just yet, if they ever did, but they would still need to talk about it. If, of course, he ever saw Charles again outside of a professional context, and if there was ever any hope of… anything. Which, Arthur reminded himself again, there probably wasn’t.

But it was hard to ignore the connection that the last time that Arthur immediately felt so silly and awkward about his sudden feelings for another person was when he met Abigail. Mary had just broken off their engagement two months or so before Abigail moved to Limpany, fresh out of Saint Denis’ culinary school and looking for a less expensive place to live and get her start in the world. She was clever and funny and strong-willed. But he never said a thing, because he was certain he only liked her because she was the first new woman he’d met after Mary, and he never said a thing, because he was certain Abigail had no interest in the sad, mopey asshole he was at the time (and still could be.)

And then he certainly didn’t feel that way when he met Eliza. Things were slower and cooler with them. There was no immediate attraction, no tripping over himself to talk to her. She liked him, he liked her, they decided to give it a shot, and then—

And god, he certainly had never felt this way with John. When they’d met, Arthur was 17 and John was an annoying little shithead of a 13-year-old. He was another one of Dutch and Hosea’s wayward boys, but more obnoxious and rowdy than Arthur had ever been. Dutch’s family had benergy friendly with  John’s mother’s family, so when she died and everyone realized how much of a useless sack of shit John’s father was, they welcomed John into their house whenever and gave him whatever help and guidance or meals he needed. Back then, Arthur had, more than once, locked a door behind him so that he would have an excuse to not have to see, hear, or speak to John for just 10 minutes of peace.

So here he was again, feeling like he was the same-blockheaded young fool who had only just barely scratched the surface of heartbreak.

And then Arthur patted his face dry, returned to his bedroom, and took his usual nightly pills.

As he crawled into bed—pushing Boadicea out of her spot in the exact middle of the mattress—Arthur wondered if this was some sort of sign—that two good things (or, one good thing and one possible but an unlikely good thing) had happened to him at once. He was certain that something else was going to come along and strike things down. Maybe it would be something as literal and as horrible as actually being struck by lightning, although Arthur wouldn’t be overly surprised if that exact thing happened.

But something horrible would certainly happen soon.

He pulled his old leatherbound journal from the bedside table, and scrubbed down a few thoughts.  Thoughts about Abigail and John and Mary and Eliza and Dutch and Hosea and Charles.  He didn’t write down everything that he was feeling—he never could, with his wiring, he only ever seemed to be able to scratch the surface—but it made him feel better all the same.  

Then Arthur turned off the light and settled into bed, pulling the blanket up to his chin and muttering a quiet apology to his cat, who had woken up from his fidgeting on the bed.

As he drifted softly to sleep, he comforted himself with a rather morbid thought.

He’d survived horrible things already. There wasn’t much that Arthur could imagine that was worse than what he’d already been through.


	6. Attorney Client Privilege

The next Monday afternoon, Arthur was in the middle of a shift with Javier when Dutch and Hosea walked in through the backdoor of the cafe, looking out of sorts. With a wave of his hand, Dutch pulled Arthur away from the front counter, and back, into the tiny little office where Arthur and John arranged the schedules and filed the invoices from the bakery and from the coffee roaster.

“So what’s go you two looking so pathetic?” Arthur asked, half-shutting the door behind him. Hosea was already occupying the desk chair and Dutch was leaning on the desk itself, so Arthur remained standing in the corner of the room, looking at their grim faces.

“We just got a letter from Mr. Leviticus Cornwall, CEO and Chairman of Cornwall Incorporated, of Cornwall stores, the capitalist cesspit megastore ruining small towns across this fine nation,” Dutch seethed, as if Arthur hadn’t already heard one of Dutch’s previous rants about the mega-corporation's lack of ethics, or having seen one of the daily news stories about what Cornwall was doing with his unending amounts of money, “has sent us a letter giving us advance notice that their lawyers will be sending us a contract, that if we would so kindly sign it, would make us rich. They want to buy that tract of land we own at the south end of town.”

“The old train yard?” Arthur may or may not have smoked a few cigarettes and taught some friends to play poker there late at night, well past the town’s summertime curfew, back when he was a teenager. That was long before Dutch and Hosea bought it at auction for a pittance.

“That’s it,” Hosea said, as Dutch rubbed at the tension in his temples. “We’ve been sitting on it a while. It was cheap, it’s not costing us much in taxes or anything since it’s undeveloped, and none of our ideas on how to develop it have seemed right. It’s a decent amount of land, after all. According to Mr. Cornwall’s letter, they’re going to offer quite a lot for it—much more than it’s valued at now. Of course, he’s expecting us to sell it and accept the check without a second thought. But, well...”

“But we’re not looking to have a soulless, greedy, 21st-century robber baron as our next door neighbor.” Dutch stood, from the desk, rolled his eyes, and began pacing in the tiny little room.

“I can’t imagine he’s going to accept a polite _thanks_ _but_ _no_ _thanks_ from your lawyer?”

“Of course not. They’ll keep asking and keep offering until we either do something specific to develop that land or until the entire market crashes and takes Cornwall down with it.” Hosea answered with a grimace. 

“And of course,” Dutch added, shaking his head in dismay as he started another lap of the room. “Josiah’s on vacation. He and his wife and sons are on a cruise in the Caribbean, with no cell service or WiFi on the entire ship. The man certainly deserves some time off, but every time he leaves the office, something like this happens.”

He could—maybe—ask Sadie. They already had dinner plans that night, but...

Arthur was reluctant to say anything since he knew Sadie had little to no experience dealing with things on the scale that Cornwall’s attorneys did, or even on the scale Josiah Trelawney was used to, but, well, he wasn’t sure what else he could do to help Dutch and Hosea. And they were the two men who had essentially raised him, from his time as a preteen. He owed it to them to at least make some fruitless gesture of trying to help.

“I, uh, I’m already planning on meeting Sadie for dinner tonight. I’m certain she won’t be able to help us much, but she might be able to suggest some things we could research while Trelawney’s out of town. I don’t know, she might even be able to figure out what we could say to Cornwall’s people that will keep them from hounding you, even after you say you aren’t interested.”

“Thank you, Arthur,” Hosea said quietly. And then, as Dutch passed by on another lap of the room, he reached a gentle a hand out to rest on Dutch’s arm, halting the younger man’s pacing.

“Yes, thank you, Arthur. I’ll be at ease knowing there is something I can think about while Josiah is still away.”

And then Arthur’s former guardians had to leave, back to whatever it was they were doing, but not before Arthur fixed a latte for Dutch and Javier made a cup of tea for Hosea to take with them.

On and off for the rest of the afternoon, Arthur and Sadie texted back and forth. Arthur told Sadie about Dutch and Hosea’s problem, and her answer was just as he expected—that she would gladly look over anything that they received from Cornwall before Trelawney got back, but a major real estate purchases between two corporations was not her usual line of work. Sadie was a public defender, who paid the bills by having a small private office where she handled paperwork like deeds and writing wills. She and Arthur spent more time discussing their dinner plans than they did Cornwall’s interest in buying old Flatneck Station.

They ended up meeting at a burger place in town, the sort of place that offered good food that wasn’t necessarily _good_ food, a guilty pleasure more than a fine dining experience. It was the kind of place they went to pretty often, just the two of them. It wasn’t impressive, but the burgers were good, the beer plentiful, and the service fast, which made up for the fact that nearly every flat surface was just a little sticky with grease.

The two of them had eaten their burgers as if they were afraid someone was going to come and steal them away and held off on all of their conversations until they more leisurely picked at their fries.

“So, you have a date, tomorrow,” Sadie said, dragging a fry through an unearthly amount of ketchup.

Arthur froze with his own fry in his hand, and looked across the little wobbly table at her entirely impassive face.

“How did you—“

“Shouldn’ta put it on your calendar if you didn’t want me to know about it.”

Damn it.

He and Sadie had given each other access to the calendars on their phones months ago, not long after Arthur first moved into his house. They did it originally so that they could know when the other was going to go out of town so they could check on their house while they were away, and let each other know if they were planning on working a late night so they knew whether or not they needed to call the cops when they noticed their neighbor wasn’t home by two in the morning.

What they actually used it for most was seeing when the other was free to make dinner plans. Since they were both single adults who found little joy in cooking and eating dinner for themselves with no one but their pets for company, they ended up either getting dinner out or cooking for the other, at least once or twice a week.

Arthur had forgotten about the fact that Sadie could see it when he marked down date—LeClerk for 6:30 on his calendar.

“Yeah.” He said, finally. And then he stuffed his face with a few more fries so that Sadie would hopefully let the conversation drop.

She didn’t.

“You, uh, wanna tell me anything about that?”

Arthur chewed.

“Tell me, your dear friend?”

He chewed.

“Come on, attorney-client privilege, I won’t tell.”

He swallowed.

“I’m not your client.”

“Arthur.”

He took a sip of his beer, facing the reality that he could not lie to Sadie.

“I have a date with Abigail.”

She stared at him, her face unchanging, until Arthur saw her do the math in her head, and she cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes.

“Marston?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t think he knew any other Abigails, and he didn’t think Sadie did either. 

“And how does your best friend John feel about the fact you’re taking his wife on a date to a fancy French restaurant?”

Arthur couldn’t stop himself from being just a little bit glib. 

“Well, I have a date with him on Friday—that one’s not on the calendar because we haven’t made any real plans yet, other than that we both said we were free of other plans. We’ll probably just go to Smithfield’s, anyway.”

Sadie, a sharp woman, gave it a moment, ate another french fry, and then asked, “So you’re taking a cue from your adoptive dads?”

“Sort of. We haven’t agreed to anything long term, but, uh… We’re giving it a shot.”

“That’s… nice.” And then Sadie shook her head, aware that nice wasn’t quite the right word. “But I hope it works out. I hope it makes you happy. Having someone, or _someones_ , steady in your life would be good for you.”

Arthur nodded, agreeing, but also hoping that they could direct the conversation away from any sort of talk of feelings soon. But Sadie went on.

“How does one even broach the topic of polyamory, anyway? Especially when two of you are already married, and as far as I’m aware, none of you have any sort of history establishing that you are open to the idea of foregoing monogamy.”

This was not exactly a better direction for the conversation to go. Arthur searched and searched for the right way to explain what they had happened to Sadie without being… explicit.

He took too long.

Sadie leaned over the table, nearly getting her long hair in the pile of ketchup remaining on her plate, her face accusatory.

“You’re blushing.”

“No, I’m not,” Arthur said, immediately.

“You’re blushing.” She repeated.

“I—uh.”

“Why are you blushing?”

_Like a bloodhound, she was._

“I—we.” There was no way to avoid telling her. She knew something was fishy, and she wasn't going to let it drop. Short of an act of terrorism, nothing would distract her from finding out why Arthur was out of sorts. Arthur took a deep breath, looked her in the eye, and then decided he actually didn’t want to be making eye contact while he told her, so he took a shallow breath and looked away. “I—we—for the past few years—“

Being polite wasn’t working.

Sadie raised her eyebrows, expectant.

“We had sex. The three of us. And then they, mostly Abigail, suggested that we date. All of us.”

“Was the sex that good?”

“Sadie—“

“I’m kidding, I don’t need the really gory details. But, how long has this been going on?”

“Uh… since a little after they married. About a year before Abigail got pregnant with Jack. He’s he’s six, so, uh. Almost eight years.”

“Shit.”

She looked at him like she’d suddenly learned he had been talking in code the entire time they knew each other, and she only really understood him for the first time. Her jaw had dropped, and she was still leaning so far forward over the table that Arthur was worried her hair was going to drag through her ketchup.

“How often do the three of you…” She waved her hand, a blasé gesture to show the invisible ellipsis.  Why was she so interested in this?  Well, Arthur knew why, but why was she so interested she actually felt like she should ask about it?  

“Uh, a couple times a year. It depends.”

“All this time we’ve been bitching about being single, and you’ve never mentioned anything that even implied you had a sex drive. You’re a dark horse, Morgan. You complain about being lonely, but your best friends have been inviting you around for threesomes for years.”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, I just didn’t think that sort of thing happened outside of amateur porn.”

“We haven’t been—Jesus.” Arthur pushed his plate away and finished off his beer. They’d driven separately, he could just leave right now, make her pay the check, and get far away from her. And then change the locks on his doors, since she kept his spares. But Sadie Adler was the kind of woman who was probably not afraid to break a window. Was that how she got that scar above her eye? Being the single nosiest—

Okay, no, Arthur knew a lot of people who were much nosier than Sadie.

Arthur steadfastly refused to talk about his personal life for another second, and even tried and failed to turn the conversation around on Sadie, and ask about her personal life—but all she did was laugh, and remind Arthur that she had room for one man in her life—Bob, her dog—and one woman—Justice herself.

It was really unfair to Arthur that he wasn't able to hide any of his feelings, but Sadie was able to keep all of her own so close to her chest.

Sadie and Arthur had known each other for all of eight, maybe nine months.  In that time, Sadie had learned everything that was worth knowing about Arthur.  Arthur knew most of the high points of Sadie’s life—born and raised in Ambarino, college and law school in Saint Denis, met and married her husband Jake, got jobs in Limpany, Jake being murdered two years ago—but sometimes Arthur felt like Sadie had a whole parallel life he knew nothing about. 

But Arthur was used to that sort of thing. His whole life, everyone had been able to read him like a book. His mother, his father, Dutch, Hosea, Abigail.  Maybe that was why he went into art.  He didn’t have any thoughts or feelings that were concealed by anyone anyway, so why not just go ahead and put them all on giant canvases where everyone can see? 

***

Later that evening, after Arthur did boring, responsible things like pay his bills and replying a few work emails, and then raiding the back of his closet to pick something out to wear to LeClerk’s (he settled on a crisp white shirt and an emerald green vest that he’d bought during a bit of a vest phase, which was in no way influenced by Dutch’s love for vests). With that accomplished it was still far too early to go to sleep, so Arthur distracted himself with a chore he’d been ignoring since he moved into his house months before.

Arthur’s house was a little craftsman bungalow style that, once upon a time, you could buy in pieces from a catalog. It was in rough shape, in slight disrepair and showing the signs of decades and decades of different styles of interior design. But he liked the original woodwork and the size, and since Dutch and Hosea had made their whole careers out of renewing and restoring businesses in Limpany and Valentine and Rhodes, Arthur felt like he should give the little house a chance and revitalize it.

His first priority after moving in, was to turn the apartment over the detached garage (that had been built much more recently than the house, and was nearly the same size as the house) into a studio. That had been quite an undertaking, which had involved everything from replacing the structural supports that held up the second floor to installing a much, much more advanced air filter and climate control system than he had in the actual house.

In the main house, he’d updated the bathroom, had refinished the floors and updated the plumbing and electrical, but that was it. For lack of inspiration, he had repaired the drywall in spots and primed the walls in white, but hadn’t actually painted. He certainly hadn’t touched the kitchen, and he hadn’t done anything to make the house feel particularly _homey_. Honestly, the warmest and comforting thing he had in the house was his cat, and she only liked him on her own terms.

But the thing was—he was an artist. He had a few of his own sketches he wanted to hang up, and a few paintings and sketches and photos that had been given to him as gifts, not to mention his personal things—a photo of him and Dutch and Hosea, another of him and his parents, a dried flower he kept in a jar that he’d taken from a bouquet at his mother’s funeral. So he dug out the boxes of his keepsakes and pulled each item out and laid them on the floor, and then began carrying them through each room in his house, looking for inspiration.

He started with his favorites—a photo of the mountains north of Strawberry that Albert had given to him years ago, a sketch he’d done himself of his dog Copper, a finger painting Isaac had done—and tried to find places to put them.

And it was then and there that the anxiety Arthur had been waiting for finally hit him right in the gut.

There he was, 36 years old, standing all alone in a house that he shared with his cat and nothing and no one else more. Arthur had given up years ago. He was certain he wasn’t going to find someone to settle down with and had given up hope. That didn’t mean that he didn’t _want_ to find someone to hold at night and make coffee for in the morning and maybe (maybe, oh god, _maybe_ ) give fatherhood another try with.

But he’d learned his lesson, had accepted it was all unlikely, so why was he trying to forget all about that now?

Arthur looked down at the frames in his hand and realized that it would be really depressing to hang any of them (a gift from an ex-boyfriend, a drawing of his dead dog, and a painting from his dead son) in his bedroom. _Maybe the office_?

Arthur struggled to imagine things going well on his date with Abigail. He’d probably stick his foot in his mouth before they even got to the restaurant, and then he’d probably do something to piss Abigail off, and she’d leave, but not before Arthur had the chance to spill wine all over the table or something.

Or if things went well with her, then he’d almost certainly do something to accidentally start one of his and John’s old arguments. They’d be a little drunk and then all of the sudden, they’d end up in another bar fight at Smithfields—and it’s been so long since that’d last happened, Arthur was certain his chair-throwing skills were rusty.

_Maybe the finger painting should go on one of the bookshelves to the side of the fireplace in the living room. That seemed appropriate.  Right there, out in the open, but not overwhelming._

But both of those ideas were ridiculous. And he knew it, but that didn’t change a thing about his feelings.

Funny, how something that had made him so cautiously hopeful the day before was now tearing him up inside.

As Arthur decided to arrange his most sentimental decorations in the living room, where he could see them without making them focal points of his life, he talked himself through his anxiety. Things would not be so bad as he imagined. Even if they did go disastrously, that didn’t mean that John and Abigail would never talk to him again, that his chance would be ruined forever.

And even if he never had a perfect fairy-tale happy ending life, with John and Abigail or with Charles Smith or with Mary or with Eliza or with anyone else who had ever mattered to Arthur, that didn’t mean that his exaggerated visions of his ruinous future were likely to become true either.

He sighed, and counted to twenty.  

Logically, Arthur knew all of this, but all the same, it was hard to accept it as truth. 

Arthur took a step back, into the doorway between his living room and his entryway, and thought about painting his living room a nice, saturated shade of emerald green. It was a small room, but it was bright, with two large windows. Yeah, that would look nice.

And then his phone pinged with another message.

It was a message from John. He was working in the morning, and had to be in early to accept a few deliveries—he should have been asleep an hour ago, if not earlier.

_i’m at home, trying to fall asleep, and Abi won’t stop tossing and turning because she’s nervous about your date tomorrow and she’s even more nervous about us going out on friday. if you could please say something reassuring to her so that i can get to sleep so i don’t fall asleep in the middle of the mronign shift and ruin the v expensive espresso machine or fall asleep at the wheel and drive into oncoming traffic, mysed an many others would appreciate that_

And there was John, being his usual self.

Arthur responded, making a joke he almost regretted about John owing him a few late night texts, and then sent a simple message to Abigail. G _oodnight,_ _i’ll see you tomorrow darling_ followed by her favorite heart emoji, the pink one with the little golden glimmers. 

The response from Abigail was immediate.

_John put you up to this, didn’t he? Bastard. I’ll see you tomorrow, i’m really looking forward to it._

Yeah. That didn’t absolve him of all of his anxiety, but it helped.

He took a deep breath and cast his eyes around his living room once again. He had a little sketch from Preston Stephenson that would go well on the little stretch of wall next to the doorway into the dining room…

Arthur liked to believe that his life would never be as horrible as the little voice in the back of his mind said it would be. _Again._ They would never be that horrible, _again_.

Maybe things would go well on his date with Abigail, and later on his date with John.

Maybe things would go perfectly. Maybe he would soon be the happiest he’d ever been.

Maybe things would go less than well, but they would still muddle through and maintain their friendship, even if they were friends with a tarnished history.  They’d made it through touch patches before. 

Maybe he should paint the living room cerulean blue.


	7. Une Bonne Nuit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late! I had a bitch of a week last week, and then a windstorm knocked down a tree and took out my internet for a few days, and then I was having trouble with AO3's doc editor... And I was having trouble with this chapter anyway, even though it's all fluff (possibly because I've never been on a date that I've genuinely enjoyed, sad trombone noises) but the next few chapters are on track! The next chapter will feature both Charles and Javier!

WHe The next morning, Arthur dragged himself out of bed to go for a jog. He ran from his house where it sat far back from the edge of the cliffs and Horseshoe Overlook, down the hill, through the business district of Limpany, and through the riverside park and back. Arthur didn’t necessarily like jogging, but he knew that it was good for him in general, and specifically good for him and his health problems. It was also a good way to catch up on all of his podcasts.

After a quick shower and breakfast, he crossed through his yard and up the stairs to his studio above the garage. He brought Boadicea along with him for the company, and the fluffy ginger cat immediately curled up in the sunlight glaring on the shiny wooden floor and went back to sleep.

Doing as he had done so many times before, Arthur tried to get a hold of the anxious energy he still felt about his date with Abigail and his date with John, about the possibility of his life changing in a major way, and the pessimistic feeling that his life was going to crash and burn once again, and blocked it all out to paint.

He had been, for some time, working on a painting for Dutch and Hosea and Molly. Dutch and Hosea had three of Arthur’s paintings around their house. All of them were old, from when he was in high school or college, and none of them were… _good_. But of course, being the doting fools they were, they had to show off their Arthur’s works to any guest they had in the house, bragging about his talent and career while showing them paintings that Arthur knew were less than his best. He’d offered to replace those older paintings with newer and better ones before, but they were sentimental fools and weren’t interested. But Arthur had finally outsmarted them—he was going to surprise them with a painting they couldn’t possibly refuse. The subject matter was too personal, and Arthur made the painting the perfect size for them to hang right in the entryway of their fancy house, where all of their guests could see.

The painting was of Molly, but it wasn’t necessarily a portrait. If there was a person in Arthur’s paintings, they were usually without a face, with everything but their nose or lips obscured, and Molly hadn’t objected to being painted that way. Arthur had started that when he was a teenager, just because he wanted his art to have an air of mystery about it, but then it had just turned into the thing that he did. He liked that it let the viewer of his paintings choose what expression they thought the subject was making, and choose what emotion they thought the subject was feeling. A faceless figure standing at the top of a grassy hill might make some viewers feel isolated and cold, while it might make others feel energized. Arthur liked that about his art.

In the case of this particular work, Molly was painted sitting in the shade of a wide tree, her legs bent to the side, peaking out from under the skirt of her plain black dress, and with a book blocking out her face. Only her vibrant red hair and the pale skin of her hands and legs showed.

Molly was a professor of literature at the college, and though she was only dating Dutch, both he and Hosea loved talking to her about literature and philosophy and history. A painting in honor of her academic spirit seemed like a gift Dutch and Hosea (and Molly, but Molly knew about it already and had posed for the damn reference photos, so it was much less of a surprise to her) could not turn down. And maybe, it would be good enough that they would stop showing all of their guests that old painting of Elysium Pool he’d done half of his life ago.

He was nearly finished with the painting of Molly, and he hoped to present it to them soon. The trouble, of course, was Molly’s hair—he knew it would be trouble from the moment he got the idea to put her in the painting—and Molly’s hair in the dappled sunlight beneath the leaves of the tree was especially troublesome. Arthur had learned to take such a finicky little job patiently, and slowly. It was meditative, peaceful work.

Painting in such tiny brushstrokes and mixing so many different shades of red and gold and white made the time pass quickly. Before long it was time to leave the stillness and quiet of his studio behind and get ready to meet Abigail. It seemed like the very moment he stepped out of his studio, Boadicea squirming in his arms as he carried her back to the house, his panic and nerves flooded through him again. But he ignored it, pushed it away, and may have made a detour to his liquor cabinet as soon as he made it back inside of his house and fed Boadicea her dinner.

It didn’t take him long to get ready, even with his extra-diligent attention to his dental hygiene. He almost regretted that he’d been responsible and picked out his clothes the night before, if only to give him something to do to fill his time.

He supposed, after a moment of shuffling his feet, that he could go over to the Marstons’ early. Abigail would take as long as she needed to get ready no matter where he was, and John and Jack were at home. For lack of anything else to do—he was ready, the cat had food and water, the place was spotless, the garbage didn’t need taking out—he grabbed his keys, doubled back to his bedroom to grab a jacket at the last minute, and drove the five minutes to the Marstons’ place.

John and Abigail rented the left side of a little duplex to the south-west corner of town, on a hill with a view of the river below. It was a fairly modest place, but it was close to Jack’s elementary school, and John and Abigail had vowed long ago that they had no intention of letting Dutch and Hosea give them a house (or, at least, a steeply discounted price on one of the houses they had renovated) as they had offered to do every few months for the past six or seven years.

Arthur was fond of pointing out to John that Dutch and Hosea had never given him such an offer, on his nearly-lifelong pursuit to prove to John that he was the favorite of the wayward children the two older men had ever taken under their wings.

Arthur parked at the end of their driveway, behind Abigail’s little car, and with a great deep breath to calm his utterly irrational nerves, Arthur got out of his car, walked up the crackled little sidewalk, and onto the Marston’s porch.

The door opened before he could knock.

“Hello, Uncle Arthur,” Jack said, jumping forward and wrapping his arms around Arthur’s waist. Arthur bent over, his back at an awkward angle, to place a hand on the boy's shoulder. It hadn’t been long since the last time he’d seen Jack—it had only been a few days since the last time he stopped in the coffee shop with his father after school—but he would swear Jack had grown another half an inch since then.

“Hey there, kid. How are you?”

“Good. I got to miss half a day of school today because I had a dentist’s appointment.”

“Did you?” Arthur asked as Jack pulled away and waved Arthur inside. “How did the dentist go, okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t have any cavities.” Jack grinned as wide as his little face could, as he bared his shiny and clean teeth for Arthur to see. And then Jack’s face dropped. “Dad! Mom! Uncle Arthur’s here.”

Arthur shut the door behind him and heard John’s heavy, trampling footsteps from somewhere nearby. John emerged from the doorway into the little kitchen, his long, dark hair hanging loosely around his face and a pair of bright yellow rubber gloves covering his hands and forearms. Listening closely, Arthur could hear the sound of running water.

“You’re here early,” John said, trying and failing to push a stray lock of hair back from his face with his rubber glove-covered forearm. Arthur crossed the little entryway in two steps and pushed the troublesome lock of hair behind John’s ear for him. John’s face turned sour and Arthur winked.

Taking half a step back, Arthur shrugged and looked around to find Jack leaning against the wall and watching with a passing interest.

“Only fifteen, twenty minutes early. I figured I would be welcome to pass the time talking with one of my best friends in the whole world.”

“Well, I’m in the middle of cleaning up after dinner, which is usually Abigail's chore, since I cook, but since she has other plans—“

“I didn’t mean you, _Senior_ ,” Arthur said, John’s increasingly bitter expression and Jack’s little giggles helping his nerves settle a little more quickly. Arthur turned around and faced Jack, who stood up and looked up at Arthur, his face expectant. “Jack, do you want to talk with your old Uncle Arthur for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” he said, already skipping along to their living room. Arthur turned to look back at John, who was in the middle of rolling his eyes and looked ready to return to washing dishes now that his son was out of sight. But the other man hesitated.

“Hey, Arthur?” He asked, his eyes wide.

Arthur nodded, waiting for him to go on.

“Green is a really good color for you.” And there was a beat of silence, as Arthur thought about how he could respond, what the best thing to do or say was in such a curious situation as he was in with John, but then— “Did you steal that vest from Dutch's closet?”

And then Arthur knew exactly how he was supposed to respond.

He flipped John off, and with a satisfied laugh, John turned and strolled back to the kitchen.

Arthur joined Jack in the living room and listened as Jack told him everything about his six-year-old life. Jack was a bright young boy—he clearly got that from his mother—and he was almost too smart for kindergarten. He told Arthur of all of the books he had been reading, and of the projects he’d finished in art class. Outside of school, he stayed busy with swimming and piano lessons, so he told Arthur all about swimming laps and practicing his scales. And the boy had a million different dreams for his life—from becoming a time traveler so that he could go back in time and become a medieval knight, to growing up and taking over Dutch and Hosea’s business from them.

Jack was a good kid. The best. He was so bright and kind that Arthur could ignore his grief and envy and just enjoy being around the kid.

Time passed quickly. Twenty minutes spent talking to Jack were gone in a flash, and Arthur was in the middle of promising Jack that he would show him a little bit about how to draw when a silhouette appeared in the corner of Arthur’s eye. It was Abigail, of course—John’s legs didn’t look like that in tights and sensible heels.

She was wearing a vibrant red dress, with long sleeves and that fell at the knee. It wasn’t frilly or ornate, but it was perfect. She held her purse in one hand and a coat was slung over the other arm, all the while she was still wiggling her feet to cram them into her shoes.

Abigail saw him staring, and winked as she straightened up and smoothed out the wrinkles from her dress.

“Jack?” She asked, her voice as gentle as it only ever was when she talked to her son.

“Are you and Uncle Arthur leaving now?”

“Yes,” she said, walking through the cramped little room, and setting her coat and purse down on the arm of the couch so she could wrap her son in a hug.

“Be good for your father.” She said, pressing a kiss on the crown of his head. “I probably won’t be back before your bedtime, so—“

“Will you wake me up?”

“If that’s what you want.” She pressed another kiss to his forehead, picked up her things, and cheated to the side, to face where Arthur sat. “Are you ready?”

He nodded and reached over to ruffle Jack’s hair. The boy had already curled up into a small ball on the couch, a pillow clutched in his arms.

“After you.”

As Abigail led the way to the front door, she called out, “John! We’re headed out,” as she slipped on her coat.

“Have fun, you crazy kids,” was the response, shouted over the distinct noise of popping popcorn.

Two minutes later, Abigail was sitting as primly as Arthur had ever seen her in the passenger seat of his car as he wound his way through the streets of Limpany for the highway.

At first, they made pleasant small talk. Abigail had spent most of her day making pastries and little cakes for the teachers of some of the local schools, for an event organized by one of the PTAs. She told him about her co-baker, Simon, and his struggles with some inactive yeast. She told him about Uncle and his latest impossible scheme for how they could make their bakery more _exciting_ and appealing to new customers _,_  and the squabbles between the Calendar brothers, Mac and Davey, the two assistants and delivery drivers she worked with.

She already knew all of the gossip from the coffee shop from John, so Arthur told her about the success he made in painting that day and his decision to finally paint his house. That last statement was met with sarcastic congratulations.

“Yeah? You decide on any colors, yet?”

“… Maybe.”

Abigail promised that she and John would lend a hand—and maybe Jack, too—when he finally started painting and declared that they would make a party out it.

And then, once Arthur merged onto the highway and they left the Limpany city limits behind, Abigail turned to look out the window, to admire the rolling hills and rocks and trees and farms. Just before the towering bridge over the Dakota River, they passed a farm where they always had dozens of sheep grazing out in the fields.

Unlike Arthur, Abigail hadn’t grown up around here. Being surrounded by fields of endless corn and hulking cattle and horses was still novel to her, and she liked sheep the best. Arthur had no idea if she had ever actually seen one up close, but he knew that she liked looking at them.

There were many things Arthur already knew about Abigail, and that, he thought, made this whole thing harder. They couldn’t play the first-date game of 20 questions, because they knew the answers already.

Her favorite color was royal blue, she could bake the most intricate and finicky pastries in the world but couldn’t make spaghetti or a grilled cheese sandwich without setting something on fire. She overindulged in coffee, and she dyslexia that had gone undiagnosed for years as a child, so she had struggled through school despite how sharp and clever she was. She preferred white over red wine and preferred whiskey over either. She had never had any pets as a child, and her relationship with her parents was nonexistent. She had a crooked smile that, even if it wasn’t symmetrically perfect, had always made his heart grow light to see it. She was stubborn and principled and charming and strong.

He also knew what she looked and sounded and tasted like when she orgasmed, and that she could sleep comfortably laying on either of her sides.

And Arthur had been there, one of the few people in attendance at John and Abigail’s courthouse wedding. He’d been in the hospital when Jack was born, had been there when Dutch introduced John and Abigail, one of his newest business partners and one of his wayward children.

There was no question that he knew Abigail, just like he knew John, and loved them both as his closest friends. Now he just needed to get to know them and love them like a boyfriend and a girlfriend, to fill in the gaps.

He could do that, right? All three of them could. It would be a slow process, as it was with anyone, but they could do it.

_As long as nothing horrible and disastrous happens, as long as Arthur doesn’t put his foot in his mouth and make a fool of himself, as long as—_

_Stop it._

As they passed by the tiny town of Riggs, a sign they were nearly there, Abigail turned her attention back to the road, and Arthur, pulling out the second oldest move in the book, set his free hand on top of Abigail’s, where it rested on her knee.

Abigail scoffed and muttered, “real smooth, Morgan,” under her breath, but set her other hand rest on top of his anyway.

The rest of the drive passed in a pleasant, buzzing sense of quiet. Arthur only pulled his hand away from Abigail’s when he needed it to park the car.

They parked in the first open spot they found, one hundred or so feet down Strawberry’s winding main street from the little restaurant. It was a lovely night, and Strawberry was the most harmless little town in the tri-state area. The walk would be nice, no trouble at all.

As they strolled up the road together, their shoulders brushing together but their arms and hands free of each other, as they aimlessly admired the carved wood and gingerbread Victorian architecture around the town. Strawberry was a tourist trap, but it was still nice, especially in between the ski season and the summer, when it was quiet.

But then Arthur saw something so entirely unexpected waiting for him up the street, he was almost certain he was imagining it. But—no, he certainly wouldn’t hallucinate _that_.

All of Arthur’s anxiety and fretting was pointless. He never needed to fear what would happen between himself and Abigail—he needed to fear everyone else.

Standing on the little cobblestone street directly outside of the new French restaurant, were Sean and Karen. They were making out like teenagers who managed to find a moment out from under the adults’ eyes for the first time in weeks—which, since they were both adults in their mid-twenties with jobs and their own apartments, Arthur knew that they weren’t.

“Jesus.” Arthur bit out, stopping in place, Abigail stopping a second after, her feet unsteady on the cobblestones.

“Oh, dear lord. I thought they’d broken up?” She hissed, her fingers digging into Arthur’s arm.

“Eh, I think their relationship status changes every day,” Arthur sighed, looking around the street for any possible exit strategy. There really wasn’t one. Unless they wanted to hide out in an alleyway or a very bougie pet store or a real estate broker’s office and wait for the two of them to leave, there was nowhere to go. Unless they decided to power through, walk right by them, and hope that Sean and Karen were so thoroughly glued together at the mouth that they weren’t going to separate at the wrong moment.

“Does it matter? If they see us?” Arthur asked, his voice a whisper, even though Sean and Karen were still a good 30, 40 feet down the street. They had no chance of hearing Arthur over the sound of passing cars and the accordion music playing through the restaurant’s speakers.

“Will it matter to you?” Abigail asked, bringing her other hand to rest on the bend of Arthur’s elbow. “You’re the one that’s going to look like a home wrecker.”

“You’re the one who will look like you’re cheating on your husband.”

“Unless we tell them that it’s all above board.”

“Well, would they even realize this is, _it’s a date_?”

Abigail’s panicked face drops into an expression of near pity.

“Arthur, I put lipstick on, of course Karen will realize this is a date.”

Arthur sighed again, and looked around the street again. The bougie pet store was a good option. He might get a new collar for Boadicea, but then they would be late for their reservation...

But beside him, Abigail groaned.

“We are adults.” She said, stamping her foot a little, like some kind of upset horse chomping at the bit.

“Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?”

She pinched him, just a little, on the arm.

“We don’t have to be afraid of them.” She hissed, as if she isn’t still showing that she wasn’t still afraid of having two people who were thoroughly attached at the lips 30 feet away overhearing her. “They are our friends. Even if things are awkward, we don’t need to worry about them jumping to conclusions, or spreading gossip.”

Arthur could pinpoint the very moment that Abigail's eyes widened and she realized how wrong she was.

“Okay,” she muttered. “Maybe, if it were anyone else, we wouldn’t need to worry.”

An older couple pushed past them on the sidewalk, and Arthur looked up the street, to the restaurant and the old hotel, and then to the south, to the little creek that ran through town and the buildings on the other side. The sun was starting to set, and the town looked as charming as ever, but Arthur could see in his periphery as Abigail pulled her jacket just a little tighter. They can’t stay out here forever, even though another glance up the street confirms that Sean and Karen had ended their kiss, but were still wrapped in each other’s arms, next to the wall.

“What if we just walk on by and pretend we don’t notice them?”

“We can’t do that, it’s not that busy or crowded. What if we lie, and say that John or Dutch or someone is waiting for us inside?”

“Sean will just invite himself inside to talk to whatever imaginary friend we pick. What if we just be honest?”

“I already suggested that, Arthur.” And then she grabbed him by the hand again and marched him up the street at a blazing pace. They got closer and closer, and Arthur panicked—and then decided, when they were less than ten feet away from Sean and Karen—that he was going to let Abigail handle this however she saw fit.  She had taken the lead, after all.

_It was the first date, and they were already dealing with bullshit._

They slowed their pace as they neared the glass front door to LeClerk’s restaurant, and Arthur braced for the metaphorical impact as they gof closer and closer to the other couple. And then he heard it.

“Arthur! Abigail!” Karen cried, breaking away from Sean to throw her arms around both of them at the same time. Sean, meanwhile, sagged against the wall for a lack of a Karen to hold onto for support. It was impossible for either Arthur or Abigail to not notice the alcohol on Karen’s breath. She—or, no, both her and Sean—were entirely wasted, in the middle of the evening.  

“Hello, Karen.”

“Evening, Sean.”

“What are you two doing out an about in Strawberry?”

“Oh, we’re just getting dinner,” Abigail said, pushing Karen back and screwing up her face a little. One of Karen’s golden curls had gotten stuck in Abigail’s mouth, and she attempted to spit it out without Karen noticing what was going on. It wasn’t hard, since Karen wasn’t all that perceptive in their current state.

“That’s nice.” Karen slurred, before letting go, and taking a few steps back, towards the wall and towards Sean.

His seconds’ earlier resolve to just let Abigail handle the talking crumbled away as Arthur remembered what day of the week it is, and remembered arranging the month’s schedule with John.

“Sean, don’t you have work in the morning?”

“Of course I do!” Sean said, trying and failing to stand up straight. “Why do you think we’re out here getting hammered at—“ He pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans, and squinted at the screen. Karen leaned over to tried to help him tell the time, but her hair and her head only got in the way, so Sean stumbled to the wide to get a little further out of her way. “Six-thirty in the evening. We have very romantic plans to stay a night in the hotel,” he gave a horrible, exaggerated wink and glossed over the difficulty he had pronouncing most of his words “to celebrate our recent reuniting, and we’ll still have time for a full night’s sleep.”

“It’s a brilliant idea,” Karen added, blinking her eyes as she tried and fails to focus them on the sidewalk in front of her.

“Sure.”

“Yes… Well, have a nice night, you two.”

“Yeah...”

“Thanks, you too.”

And Abigail clutched onto Arthur by the sleeve of his shirt and towards the door of the restaurant, opening the front door and pushing him inside. A hostess greets them with a kind smile as Abigail gave her the name and time of their reservation, and said nothing more. As the hostess disappeared from sight to check if their table was ready, Abigail cracked, and laughed. Hearing her choked little laughs, Arthur couldn’t stop himself, so he laughed too, even as he tried to remain standing upright, to be on his best behavior in the cozy little candlelit restaurant. 

“Jesus.” He hissed. 

“God.”  Abigail leaned her forehead against his arm, hiding her face and her laughter.  

“I can guarantee you, that those two are not going to have all that romantic of a night.”

“They’re going to pass out as soon as they see a bed.”

“I—we were worried, so worried over nothing...”

“At least we don’t have to worry about one of them driving in that condition. But the hangovers they’re going to have in the morning.”

“John will have to work with Sean tomorrow morning. We’ll need to tell him to give Sean a hard time. Play the music too loud, or something.”

“Keep him too busy to drink any coffee.”

“Or, let him get a cup of coffee to drink, but hide it any time Sean looks away.”

The hostess finally returned, and they wipe the tears of laughter from their eyes and try to pretend like they weren’t just giggling like little children in the front of a fancy new restaurant.

They’re seated at a little round table in the back of the restaurant. It’s covered in a rich cream-colored table cloth and lit by a small candle in the center of the table. The two of them settle into their seats and look over the menu. Just as the smiles finally fade from their faces, Abigail set her menu to the side and nudged Arthur’s leg with her foot under the table to get his attention.

“You want to know something?” She asked, looking around the little restaurant and taking in every detail, from the décor to the waitstaffs’ uniform.

“What?”

“The reason John refused to come with me to eat here is that he’s tired of having to listen to me critique the pastry skills of every restaurant where we eat that isn’t, I don’t know, fast food.”

Without even trying too hard, Arthur could perfectly imagine the argument between the two of them, down to the timing of the rolling of their eyes and the jabs about the other’s perfect and unending knowledge.

Unbidden, Arthur smiled. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I can see how that might have been an issue in the Marston household.”

They order soon after. Abigail helped him the best that she could with the French pronunciations, and he decided to be adventurous and ordered an entrée where he didn’t really know what it was that he was getting, but he was pretty sure it was a type of fish. They also ordered a bottle of wine to share, and they both thoroughly impressed the smug looking waiter with their selection and their confidence that they didn’t need his help understanding wine pairings that they both feel like they’d won some sort of game for pretending to be cultured and fancy people.

Conversation was easy, as they enjoy their first course, and grows easier as they enjoy their entrées and finish their wine. By the time their dessert arrives—Abigail ordered a pear tart just for the chance to critique it—they were both flushed and silly and teasing.

“And how is the tart?” Arthur asked as Abigail takes a bite and chews, slowly, considering.

“The crust is good, but I’ve had better. The pears, on the other hand, are amazing.”

She traded him a bite of her tart for a bite of his crème brûlée, and they are both delighted and impressed.

The conversation gets increasingly silly as they take tiny bites of their desserts, savoring the sweets and the company, drawing it out, without either one of them just admitting that was what they were doing. Halfway through their desserts, they started talking about the history of Strawberry, a topic on which neither of them were experts. But they amused themselves with making up tall tales about the gangs and bootleggers and, according to some local stories, time travelers that had made Strawberry home over the past century.

“I could imagine you as a cowboy, or an outlaw,” Abigail told him. “Maybe you’d be in one of the gangs that used to hang around here, like the Jack Hall gang. Although, I don’t know if you’ve ever touched a gun in your life, so maybe not.”

“Have you been speaking to Micah Bell?” Arthur asked, worry chilling him to the bone after he forces down a bite of his crème brûlée.

Her eyes snapped up from her plate, horrified, and she murmured “what do you mean?”

“I wore cowboy boots once, and he’ll never let me live it down. He keeps calling me cowpoke, and I kinda want to punch him the face every time he says it.”

“Oh. Forget I said anything.” She took another sip of her water, and shivered. “You know that man has, more than once, hit on me in front of John and Jack?”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Or, actually, it does surprise me, because I thought he was in love with Dutch.”

She giggled, at first way too loud for the dark little restaurant, but she quickly muffled her laughter with her hand.

“I don’t think he’s Dutch’s type, is he?”

And then Arthur laughed, loud and easy.

“No, no. His type is a little more… put together.”

“You mean well-groomed?”

“Actually, I think I mean high maintenance.”

“ _Arthur_ —“

“I lived with Hosea for, what, five years? I can say that. I’ve never met anyone that’s as particular about the hem of their pants and the fit of a shirt as that man. And I know that I have never seen Molly in anything less than a full face of makeup and a perfectly curated outfit.”

_Dutch, Hosea, and Molly._

“Oh, well, that explains you,” Abigail said, her eyes sparkling as she takes one final bite of her dessert.

Arthur stopped dead and pushed a different, wine-fueled thought to the side.

“And what does that mean?” He tried to ignore the growing sense of self-consciousness—Abigail was a consummate tease, but she never meant it to be cruel—but he couldn’t help that she was about to point out another flaw to him that he’d never knew he had.

“I mean, Arthur Morgan, that you pretend to be a very relaxed man, without an ounce of Dutch’s or even Hosea’s vanity, but you spend an awful lot of time and energy on your hair and facial hair for someone who doesn’t care about their appearance.”

She smirked, and Arthur came up with a dozen things to say in his defense, but none of them would really shut that argument up for good. She had a point, after all.

“Yeah, sure, okay...” Arthur grumbled, finishing off his dessert, and setting his spoon to the side. Across the table and the flickering candle, Abigail gloated, and as that conversation came to an end, Arthur couldn’t keep the sudden, surprising thought from earlier at bay. The thought about Dutch, Hosea—and Molly. His guardians and friends, the people who raised him from the age of 14, and his example in all—or at least some—things.

He hadn’t had all that much wine, as the driver, but he had had enough to loosen his tongue, to give him a little bravery. Of all people, Abigail would respect a sudden surge of bravery—hadn’t that been what had gotten them in this situation in the first place?—so before he can overthink anything anymore, he asks.

“So I’m about to kill the good mood entirely, but… When you and John talked about, you know, changing course for our relationship,” Arthur started, looking down at his hands.

“Good euphemism.”

“What did you imagine that it would be like?”

She smiled, but it faded quickly as she thought things through.

“I imagined a lot.” She said, quietly, looking around the restaurant like she was expecting a crowd of gossipy eavesdroppers to be listening in. Like she expected Sean and Karen to have returned, sober. “But there wasn’t much use in imagining things that might never happen, so I thought—I…” she sighed, and took a sip of her water. She wasn’t upset or nervous, she just looked a little overwhelmed.

 _He should have kept his damn mouth shu_ _t, damn the wine, damn the bravery._

“I’ll start at the beginning. It was John that brought it up. He’d mentioned, one night after we’d had dinner at Dutch’s house, that because he’d grown up hanging around with Hosea and Dutch and Bessie and Annabelle, that he always assumed that most people were polyamorous and just didn’t get the opportunity to live in a house big enough for all of them.

“So I teased him about it, and asked who else he would be willing to put up with, in addition to me. He didn’t want to answer, so he goaded me into saying who I thought he might pick. I—I phrased it as a joke, even though, I knew it really wasn’t a joke. I said _you_ because you’re already important to us, and we’ve already been _carrying on_ , for a while, and I know you’re completely oblivious to it, but there are a lot of people who are already halfway in love with you, Arthur. And then John tried to laugh it off, saying it was just a silly thought and he wasn’t sure why he’d brought it up. I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t press him on it.

“Then a few days later, it was my day off, so when John got home from the morning shift, while Jack was still at school, and he asked me if I was one of those people that was already halfway in love with you. We danced around it for a little bit—I wasn’t going to admit it until he admitted it as well. And then we did, nearly confess at the same time. I’m can’t remember who said what, or which of us was really the first to confess. But we admitted that we both imagined that we could be happy with each other and with you, but we weren’t sure if we wanted to risk it, then.

“So we said we would give it a little time, to think about it, and then we made up our minds a few days later. And then we asked you.” She says, with a little shake of the head. “Or, I asked you.”

Arthur felt like his heart was about to break. Or, maybe, that he had heartburn. But there was a stuffy, inflated feeling in his chest that was slowly rising up into his throat. He had no idea what he could or should say, even though a dark and sad part of him certainly wanted to laugh at the notion that he’s been charming people left and right, but he had gone through a lot of effort to keep that dark and sad part of him quiet. But still, the other parts of him weren’t sure how to respond.

“I’m glad I asked.” She said, nearly whispered.

“Me too.”

And then any sincere and intimate mood between them is thoroughly destroyed by the return of their obnoxiously smug waiter, who makes a big deal about how Abigail paying for dinner and how Arthur let her pay for dinner, as if he’d never seen a woman use money before and as if Arthur had the power to _let_ anyone do anything.

It nearly soured Arthur’s mood, until they stood and slipped on their coats, and Abigail grabbed onto his arm and they walked, together, out of the restaurant.

Sean and Karen’s interlude aside, it was a good night. Nearly perfect, as far as first dates go.

They’re silent on the ride back to Limpany. Neither of them has much to say, but a lot to think about.

When they’re halfway between the glowing lights of Strawberry and Limpany, Abigail rests her head against the side window and turns her head to search the sky for stars. She sighs, and it doesn’t sound like an inpatient or nervous sigh, so Arthur takes it as a sign that she is content, to be there, to be with him.

The Marstons’ apartment is dark when Arthur parks at the end of the driveway, aside from the glowing yellow porch light. It was past Jack’s bedtime, and since John was working first thing in the morning, it was past his bedtime too.

Arthur cleared his throat, and suggested, “I could walk you to the door?”

Abigail’s face breaks into a smirk as if Arthur had any misconception that he was being smooth or sly.

“Yes, sure, you can walk me to the door.”

She grabbed her purse and slipped out of the car, Arthur a beat behind her as they walked up the little sidewalk and to the Marston’s front door. She unlocked the door, but did not open it, and left her keys to hang from the doorknob.

Arthur tried to think of something romantic to say, some meaningful declaration about their relationship and his determination to make things work, how he always enjoyed spending time with her but that tonight had been something different and special, but none of his thoughts wanted to form complete sentences.

But then Abigail re-adjusted her purse on her shoulder, and under her breath, she muttered, “oh, fuck it.”

And with one hand on Arthur’s shoulder, the other in his hair, Abigail pushed him back against the wall and kissed him. The turn and the surprise left him completely breathless, and he tried to take all of his air from her, pulling her in close and breathing in deeply until there was nothing but her and her lips and their kiss. Not for the first time he noticed, but for the first time he really appreciates how she smelled like fresh roses and how soft and warm she was under his hands.

One of them teasingly bites at the other’s lower lip, and the other responded with a soft brush of their tongue. Arthur doesn’t much care who it was that started the push, who responded with the pull, but when finally, their tongues brush against each other’s, Arthur forgot himself and shivered.

Arthur pulled her closer, and Abigail gasped in the back of her throat and knotted her fingers in his hair. Then it’s his turn to groan, as the dull pain transformed into a feeling of sparks that traveled down his body along his spine, and Arthur broke the kiss.

_That was a dirty trick, and she knows it._

They look at each other, cast in golden yellow light, and their eyes met. This was the metaphorical fork in the road. They had two choices. With Jack expecting to be woken up for a quick goodnight and a kiss from his mother, there was only one option, and they both knew it.

Their hands dropped, and they took a step back, neither of them really sure of what to do with themselves. So Arthur whispered, “good night. And thank you, Abigail.”

With another soft and sweet little crooked smile, she grubbed her keys, opened the front door, and stepped inside.

“Goodnight, Arthur. And thank you.”

“Sweet dreams.”

She winked and shut the door.

He makes it back to the car, managing not to trip and stumble along the way. Once he remembered that he needed to actually start the car before he could go anywhere, Arthur drove home, never even realizing he was going 5 under the speed limit the entire way.

Arthur’s not exactly tired, and he has no plans for the next morning, and he’s not sure what else to do with himself. So when he gets home, he grabs one of his favorire sketchbooks, and kicks his feet up on the living room couch. Boadicea curls up and falls asleep next to his feet while he draws rose after rose after rose from memory, trying to get the curve of the petals right.

As he finally grows weary, and finally sketches a flower he’s happy with, he thinks maybe he’ll paint a rose with watercolors. That would be nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the first chapter that talks much about Arthur's painting, so I wanted to give references for what style/technique Arthur uses, so you can imagine the paintings that'll be mentioned over the course of the fic. Please note that I am not an artist, but I have some really talented painters in my family, so I know a little bit about painting and art history, but most of this is just based on my own opinions of what I think looks nice. 
> 
> When he was first starting out, I think Arthur did a lot of Hudson River School style painting, and once he went through college he settled into Impressionism, because 1. that's my favorite and 2. the 1890s were the middle of the height of Impressionism, so I think that's a nice nod to the canon timeline. There are a ton of famous European impressionists that you might already know about, but I think Arthur takes after American impressionists like Guy Wiggins, Childe Hassam, and Mary Cassatt more than Monet or any of the other Europeans. Also, check out the Pennsylvanian School of Impressionism! It's not super well know, but it focuses a lot on landscapes, and 'American' landscapes, so it's a really good point of reference for Arthur's work. Also, the subject of his paintings has changed over time: when he was younger, he did a lot more domestic painting (think, children playing in an open field, or a family on a picnic) until Eliza and Isaac, when he started doing more landscapes (nice things, but impersonal.)
> 
> Also: I have seen several posts on Tumblr about what kind of car modern au Arthur drives, so in this au? Prius. Arthur drives a Prius. Arthur has complicated feelings on the oil industry and gets 50 miles to the gallon.


	8. Fishers of Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this to be short... but then I decided I wanted more Charles, so whoops.

When Arthur finally fell asleep after his date with Abigail, his dreams were full of nightmares that he thankfully did not remember in the morning. However, he woke still feeling unsettled and groggy.

To try and remedy that, Arthur went to the gym first thing, and rewarded himself for his ambition with a stop at the coffee shop. He slipped in behind the counter in the middle of the late morning rush to make his own coffee, and said a casual _hello_ to John and Kieran, and gave a very loud and boisterous _good morning_ to Sean as they went about making the actual customer’s orders. Sean gave absolutely no sign that he remembered seeing Arthur in Strawberry the day before, and John, in the middle of pulling a few shots of espresso for one of their more eccentric regulars (a ginger man with a notable port wine stain birthmark who, for whatever reason, always brought a mechanical typewriter with him to the coffee shop) spared time for a quick wink.

The rest of his day was spent working on the painting of Molly. He was nearly happy with her hair. As dinner time approached, Arthur set down his brushes and pallet and instead, moved on to cutting out the canvas he needed for his most recent commission.

Arthur’s newest client—the rich man from Germany—had been very specific about the size and the materials of the painting he wanted to commission. He wanted a large painting, to keep in the entryway of his house, and draw all of his visitor’s eyes. He wanted richly pigmented colors, painted on the finest Belgian linen canvas, with the highest quality varnish to protect the paintings from dirt and sunlight, a painting that his family could own for generations and generations.

He was much less exacting with the subject itself. All the man told Arthur was that he wanted a painting of water. He did not care if it was a creek or a lake or the ocean itself, and, although he had never said otherwise, Arthur suspected he didn’t want a painting of a pothole that had filled with muddy rainwater.

Arthur had wanted to get a little bit of inspiration first, to see what struck him as eye-catching, what subject was suitable for such a large painting. On Thursday morning, when Arthur went back to work, Javier provided the perfect opportunity to get started finding that inspiration. The other man mentioned his plans to go trout fishing that afternoon, at a quiet little spot a few miles upriver from Limpany, and invited Arthur to tag along. Javier was an avid fisherman, a fact that, despite himself, never stopped surprising Arthur.

Arthur knew very well that Dutch made a point of hiring people with interesting life histories, whether that meant people with criminal backgrounds who would struggle to find employment anywhere else or just particularly interesting people. Sure, there was more than some nepotism involved in Dutch hiring Arthur as a manager, but his employment history, his personal history, and his medical history were enough to give any employer pause—but Dutch had asked Arthur to work at the coffee shop for precisely those reasons.

Arthur had no idea what Javier had done with his life before finding his way to Van der Linde’s. He knew that Javier and his mother had moved to Limpany a few years ago and lived about two blocks away from Horseshoe Overlook, and had renovated an old, worn house that was gravely in need of some love. At some point in the middle of that project, they met Dutch and Hosea and became friends. Arthur also knew that Javier had been taught to play guitar by his father, and that he had lived in Mexico until he was in his early teens, and that was about it. Javier liked to keep his hand close to his chest, so to speak, and played coy about the details of his life by shrouding them in hyperbole.

At least, Arthur was mostly certain it was hyperbole. Most of the time, Arthur was fine to let it all slide, and to let Javier have his jokes about being an assassin for the Mexican government and about being a parachuting drug mule who jumped out of planes in order to move drugs across the border at the behest of three different drug cartels. Even the less dangerous jokes, like how he was the illegitimate son of the most famous mariachi trumpeter in Mexico were, as far as Arthur was concerned, just jokes Javier made to see how gullible (and, racist) the people of Limpany were.

Other times—specifically, when Javier decided to go fishing in nice corduroy pants, a fancy woolen peacoat, with a silk scarf tied around his neck—Arthur could not stop himself from wondering what kind of fucking life Javier had led before he moved to Limpany. Arthur thought that wearing his second-least decent pair of jeans was too risky this close to the river. The Dakota was fairly clean, as far as river go, in terms of both regular old dirt and pollution, but it was still a river.

Regardless of his questionable fashion choices, Javier made excellent company for things like this. He did not talk too little or too much, and when he did talk, he always kept things pleasant and friendly. Fishing wasn’t the time for talking about politics or philosophy, in Arthur’s opinion, and Javier seemed to agree. He and Arthur would talk about Limpany, their friends, their family, their regular customers, Arthur’s painting and Javier’s music. It was nice, to be able to talk somewhere other than at work, where they were often interrupted, and where they often couldn't talk about certain things because it was _work_.

So when Javier invited Arthur to tag along, despite knowing how useless he was with a rod and reel, Arthur negotiated a little. He would tag along, the two of them would talk, and Javier would fish while Arthur wandered around the banks of the river, getting some inspiration for the recently commissioned painting.

The met up after their morning shift, and drove upriver a little, to a quiet little spot close to Caliban’s Seat. The river was shallow there, but that was apparently what you wanted for trout fishing—Arthur didn’t know that, but he trusted Javier to know better.

The land just to the other side of the river there was undeveloped. The steep hill, leading up to the little neighborhood called Painted Sky, was covered in old tree growth and rocks, Arthur took photo after photo of the babbling little river, of the birds sitting on the rocks, the whitetail doe and her fauns drinking from the shore. Javier, meanwhile, sat on a particularly large rock, and caught trout after trout, throwing most of them back.

They were mostly alone, although there was another pair of fisherman a hundred or so yards downriver. It was quiet and blessedly warm. Aside from the occasional chilly breeze, it was the first day in a very long time that was warm enough for Arthur to leave his own coat draped across a rock and to relish in the sunlight.

After about half of an hour, maybe forty-five minutes of talking (and not all that much photographing) Arthur grabbed his camera and wandered a little way upstream. He got a few photos of sunlight hitting the eddies that formed behind the rocks in the shallow, pebbled river. And then he took a few wider photos, of the bend in the river and the shore beyond. It was a nice little spot. Pleasant, but not exactly a source of great inspiration. Arthur had painted parts of the Dakota River before, and it wasn’t like he was tired of looking at it, or burnt out over painting rivers, but—

“Arthur?”

Arthur nearly dropped his camera. That wasn’t Javier’s voice, who else was—

He turned around, rather than speculating any more.

Standing at the edge of the river bank, maybe twenty feet away, was Charles Smith. He wore a heavy pair of boots and his usual dark coat unbuttoned, without the gloves he had worn before. They had been replaced with a pair of shiny black sunglasses, which Charles was in the middle of pushing up, onto his head.

_What_ _uncanny timing._

“Charles.”

Charles crossed the remaining distance between them, jumping down from the grass and dirt at the eroded edge of the riverbed and onto the smooth rocks of the bank below. As he walked with his eyes on the ground to watch his footing, Arthur brushed some wrinkles from the rolled sleeves of his flannel shirt.

“I almost didn’t recognize you outside of Van der Linde’s.”

(The fact that Charles had, and had recognized him from the back, was a thought that wouldn’t occur to Arthur until an epiphany hours later when he was soaking in the bath.)

“They let me out from behind the counter sometimes.” And, in fact, not having a marble-topped counter between them made Arthur realize for the first time that Charles was a few inches shorter than him. Funny. Maybe it was the wide shoulders that—

“What are you up to?”

Charles threw one hand over his shoulder and pointed at the towering red rocks behind him. Caliban’s Seat.

“I’m teaching classes at the college this summer, but I’m also teaching classes for some of the middle school and high school students in the area, through a program run by the college and some local non-profits. Have you…?”

Arthur nodded and stood a little straighter.

“Yeah. I’ve taught a couple of one-off classes over the years, but uh, Dutch and Hosea, they own the coffee shop and a bunch of other businesses in the area, they help provide funding for it. And similar things.”

_Oh, how eloquent, Arthur._

_Wait, when had the snarky voice at the back of his mind started sounding like Hosea?_

But if Charles thought his inability to form a well-phrased sentence was strange, he didn’t show it. Which maybe, wasn’t a good thing, if he just seemed to expect a poorly phrased sentence from Arthur.

Christ.

“Well, I was taking your suggestion, actually. I thought, for one of the classes, the students could photograph Caliban’s Seat. You were right, it wasn’t that dangerous to climb, but rather than have to deal with any angry parents, I thought I should just find some safer angles to photograph the rocks from.”

So he’d taken Arthur’s suggestion after all. That was… nice.

“Well, here’s a good place for it—in my opinion, anyway. The rocks are almost completely hidden by the other hills from the north and east, and that hill, from the west there,” he pointed to the steep face of the hill that separated the road below from the old ranching land at the top of the cliff. “There are some nice trails that run up that hill that have some decent views of the rocks, but they’re all pretty steep.”

Charles’ eyes connected with Arthur’s for just a moment, and—his eyes really were an unusual shade of dark brown, weren’t they? And then Charles looked down, at the camera slung over Arthur’s shoulder.

“Doing some photography of your own?”

“Oh, kind of. I’m just getting some references for a commission.” Arthur said, hoping to quickly skip over the subject as fast as possible so that he didn’t get put into a position where he would reveal how much of an armature he was compared to Charles. Charles, thankfully, took the conversation in a much more comfortable direction.

“Do you paint from reference a lot?” He asked, his face lit with genuine curiosity.

“Eh, it depends,” Arthur answered, his eyes snapping to a bright red cardinal as it flew over the river. “If I want to paint a specific landmark, I’ll use plenty. If I just want to paint a nice meadow, or some mountains, or, you know, a river, I’ll take some, and then see where the references and my own ideas take me. And then, sometimes, on smaller projects, I’ll just start painting without much of a plan, but I won’t do that when someone has already paid me a substantial amount of money for a painting.”

Charles nodded, and then brushed a strand of hair back from his eyes, only to have the wind blow it back into his face once more a moment later. Nearly all of his glossy black hair was held back in a ponytail, but some escaped under the teasing of the spring breeze.

Turning into the wind and towards the river so that he stood shoulder to shoulder with Arthur, Charles took another look around the shore, and nodded, slowly.

“I’ll admit, I don’t know a thing about painting, beyond that you use brushes. Or, I suppose you use brushes.” He said, warm, teasing tone seeping into his words.

“It’s not exactly necessary,” Arthur said, surprised by the evident humor. He supposed he had heard Charles laugh before, as they made polite small talk across the counter at VDL’s, but when Arthur imagined the other man’s face (which he hadn’t done, ever) he always imagined Charles’ face frozen into a shrewd and clever look. Not a soft little smile, like what was on his face now. “But I was never really into finger painting. And I don’t know a thing about photography, so I’d say we’re on equal footing.”

Charles raised his eyebrows and gave Arthur a decidedly skeptical look.

“That’s a pretty good camera for someone who doesn’t know how to use it.”

Shrugging, Arthur looked away. Was that a compliment? It probably wasn’t. Especially since Charles only used film cameras, and Arthur’s was digital. He probably thought it was a camera for second-rate imitators or something.

“I don’t know how to make the pictures look good, I just know how to make them useful references. I have about as much artistry with this thing as those people who show up to crime scenes and photograph the blood splatters.”

And that elicited a sudden, bright, and clear laugh from Charles that made Arthur feel just a little giddy, until he promptly decided to ignore it.

“That’s its own kind of art, I suppose.”

"Yeah, you're too generous."  

At Arthur’s suggestion, they wandered a little further up the rocky bank, around the bend in the river in search of a slightly better view of the rocks to their north. As they went, Charles kept checking over his shoulder, looking at the angle and the view of the towering rocks of Caliban’s Seat.

And then, maybe only thirty feet from where they’d started, Charles stops dead in his tracks. A beat or so after him, Arthur realizes he has stopped, and turns to look at whatever has caused Charles to stop.

High up on the side of the hill to the west of Caliban’s Seat were two large, dark figures, standing in a small pasture between the trees.

“Are those bison?”

Arthur nodded, and, after realizing Charles was absolutely not looking at him, muttered, “oh, yeah.”

His dark eyes still intent on the massive creatures in the distance, Charles hummed and brushed some of his dark hair behind his ear again.

“My mother is from a plains tribe. She’s not sure which one, but she knows that much. Our people used to chase the bison for hundreds of miles. Then her people were removed from their land, and the bison hunted until there was only a thousand of them left. Both of them directly attacked, and neither were untouched by European diseases.”

“Yeah...” Arthur sighed. He had a lot of feelings, about the west in particular, how white people had ruined and scared what had once been there with industry and greed. But he never knew how to articulate those thoughts—he left that up to Dutch—so he tried to find a more cheerful angle. “Every now and then, there’s a small herd of wild bison that passes through the Heartlands. They go anywhere from just west of here, to all the way up to the Heartland Overflow, by Emerald Ranch. That’s a town, not an actual ranch, in case you didn’t know.” And then he pointed at the two bison on the hill. “Those ones are domesticated. The ranch, there, they raise a small herd for their historical and cultural value. If you visit, they'll let you pet one.”

Charles squinted, still gazing at the lumbering beasts in the distance.

“I’m tempted to go.” He admitted. “And I think I’ll take their appearance as some kind of sign.” He turned a little, back to Caliban’s Seat. “This angle should work perfectly for my classes.” Pulling his phone from his pocket, he took a few test photos of the rocks, and of the open ground and river rocks around him, so he could find his way back in the future. As he took just a few quick pictures, Arthur felt a little pleased with himself. He’d been helpful. That’s… nice.

As if he could read Arthur’s thoughts, Charles slipped his phone away, and said, quietly, “Thank you, Arthur. For the suggestions.”

“No problem. I’m happy to help.”

Neither of them suggested it, but they turned back and walked in the direction they came from, ambling along the side of the babbling little river. And it was a good thing, too—a few thick clouds rolled in and blocked out the sun just as they turned around, and Arthur was hoping he would be able to grab his coat and put it on without just abandoning Charles.

“You know the area very well,” Charles said, as Arthur debated on unrolling the sleeves of his shirt (even though, numerous people had said it looks better if you roll the cuffs, not that he was all that concerned about such things, no matter what Abigail said…) to keep just a little warmer.

“I’ve lived here nearly all my life,” Arthur answered. “I—well, I was born in Pennsylvania, but never really lived there. Until I was about five years old, my parents and I lived in Oregon. Then we moved here, and I’ve traveled a lot, but I haven’t lived anywhere else since then.” Arthur decided to leave out the part where they moved to escape his father’s criminal history of counterfeiting and bootlegging and larceny.

Charles hummed again, and said “Limpany is an interesting little city. And it must be nice to have so many interesting places close by, for inspiration. Ambarino, New Austin, New Hanover. There’s a lot of potential nearby.”

Arthur quietly agreed. He wasn’t the kind of person that felt some incredibly strong, naturalistic connection to the earth, although, having lived with Dutch van der Linde for a few years, he couldn’t help but have some feelings about the dangers humans and industry posed to the environment. But he had never chosen to paint the stunning views of the Grizzlies, the deserts of New Austin, or the forests Roanoke Ridge because they were remarkable. He painted them because they were there.

That was a thought for another time—for a time when Arthur wasn’t growing chilly as the sun remained hidden behind some clouds. Or for a time whenever he could think about whether he and Charles were actually talking about separate things or not.

So he changed the subject.

“So where did you grow up?”

Charles shrugged again, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Everywhere. We moved a lot. Florida, California, New York, Montana. Even spent a few years in Canada.” Charles told him about how his parents' jobs took them different places, how he bounced back and forth between the two of them because his parents wanted to their son to have an equal relationship with each other.

He talked about how his mother had given him a camera when he was young, to photograph all of the people and places he knew in the towns he lived in when he knew they were going to move anyway, so he could take the memory with him.

Arthur shared his own story, how his mother had seen him doodling and drawing on whatever paper was set in front of him, and then taken him to the library to check out as many books about drawing as they had. He mentioned how, as he got older, he just decided that painting suited him better, but that he still sketched an awful lot—mostly, so that he would have something to do to keep his mind and his hands busy. As they walked around the last of the curve in the river, and came within sight of Javier, where he sat with his tackle box and cooler and rod, Charles said, “As I said, I don’t know a thing about painting. You’ll have to teach me.”

That made Arthur’s stomach flip around a little, and he picked up the pace.

“Well, brushes aren’t necessary,” he answered, looking away from Charles in order to look cool and casual, and to leave the question of whether or not that was flirting or just an attempt to network with a colleague for later. “But you do need paint.”

Arthur didn’t need to look at Charles to know that he was rolling his eyes again.

And then, as they were now within hearing range of Javier, who was in the middle of reeling in another fish, Arthur stopped walking.

“So, uh...” It would be rude for him to not introduce them, right? Since Charles had followed him back here? But, really, Arthur was never very good at these kinds of things. He never really needed to learn how, considering he was always surrounded by people like Dutch and Hosea, who were very good at this sort of thing.

Arthur cleared his throat.

“This is my friend, Javier. He works at the coffee shop too, and he’s local musician. I’ll introduce you once he’s done—” he glances over to Javier, who is putting another large trout into the cooler, “murdering a fish.”

And that gets a real smile from Charles, as his entire face softens.

Arthur takes a few steps forward, standing in between Javier and the river. Javier raises his eyebrows for a second, surprised to see Arthur not alone, but shakes his surprise off in a flash.

“Charles, this is Javier Escuella. Javier, this is Charles Smith. Charles is a photographer, and he’s stopped in the coffee shop a few times. I found him on my walk.” And then, turning to Charles, he said, “I was supposed to be keeping Javier company, but I was just scaring off all the fish, which happens any time I pick up a rod myself.”

The two other men shook hands, and exchanged a few _nice to meet yous_ as they both ignored Arthur’s lame joke, which was the reaction Arthur deserved. And then Charles took a small step back as he and Arthur got out of Javier’s way, and he cocked his head to the side.

“So is there some sort of requirement, that you have to be some kind of artist to work at Van Der Linde’s?”

“No, but there might as well be.” Javier said, smiling as he cast his rod out once more.

Clearing his throat, Arthur provided Charles with the real answer.

“Dutch hires a bunch of misfits. Nearly all of us have some sad, pathetic life story. I, for instance, am one of the many orphans.” The fact that he was the original orphan, he decided to leave out of the conversation for now. There was only so flippant he could be about that sort of thing without looking like a wreck of a man who couldn’t express his emotions, which… well, there was an argument to be made that that was exactly true.

Javier’s answer snapped him out of any potential self-loathing.

“I’m a Mexican born American citizen living in a small city in a red state. That’s why I’m a misfit.”

Charles waved his hand, a sign of _say no more._

“I, uh. I had a very normal life. I mean, my parents divorced when I was pretty young, but that’s about it, as far as personal tragedy goes. They’re both alive. So is my older sister.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Arthur says, despite not knowing if that was an appropriate thing to say or not. But Charles smiles a little crooked smile, so it must have been fine.

Javier shifts a little, to make a little more room on the rock he’d been using as his seat, and offers the space to the other men to sit. Charles accepts gladly, so Arthur does too, although he ran over to a different rock, the one where he’d laid coat, and slipped it on, as the breeze was beginning to pick up.

For fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, they talk aimlessly. Charles asked about the other misfits that Dutch hired, and Arthur and Javier obliged him. They told him about John, Kieran, Sean, and the girls. Arthur told him a little bit about the other businesses—Karen’s hair salon and Simon and Abigail’s bakery on Horseshoe Overlook, Dutch and Hosea’s real estate business, their charity work, and so on. It seemed like Charles just wanted to learn a little bit more about Limpany, the place he would be living for at least a few months. It was a nice, easy thing to talk about, even if Javier kept trying to bring up the places in the city where you could go and see some of Arthur’s paintings, for whatever reason.

Charles soon stands up from the rock, and bids both Arthur and Javier goodbye before quietly walking across the river rocks and back in the direction he came, back, presumably, towards wherever his car or maybe his bike was. As he walked away, Javier turned his head to look at Arthur, his eyes and lips twisted into some incredulous look Arthur couldn’t understand.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He said, abruptly. “Anyway, one more trout, and I’m ready to leave.”

“Alright then.”

So Arthur settled into a comfortable spot on the rock, and began plying Javier for theories about what kind of lives their most eccentric regular customers led, opening up an age-old discussion about the rumors of Reverend Swanson’s criminal history.

That night, after a quiet dinner at home with Boadicea, Arthur transferred all of the photo’s he’d taken that day to his laptop, expecting to sort through them. He’d even settled into his favorite spot on the couch and made a nice cup of herbal tea to enjoy as he sat through them, and then—

Twenty-one.

He’d taken twenty-one photos, and four of them were from when he was testing the settings on his camera. The majority of the remaining photos were of wildlife, and not the river itself. There were only five photos that would be any useful as references, and none of them seemed all that exciting to Arthur.

He was certain he'd taken a lot more.  

Five photos weren't nearly enough to be useful.  

He sighed, took a sip of his tea, and shut the laptop. Scratching a hand over his stubbled chin, Arthur decided that maybe it was a sign he should paint something else. Maybe Cumberland Falls? Or, maybe he could head on down to Tall Trees and look at the Aurora Basin—it has a nice view from the eastern side.

Setting his laptop on his coffee table, he heaved a heavy sigh, and took another sip of his tea.

He could try and blame his distraction and lack of success on Charles, but it really wasn’t his fault at all. It was all Arthur, tripping all over himself, forgetting what he was really supposed to do.  

As he sipped at the rest of his tea, Arthur checked his calendar and the weather app on his phone. The Aurora Basin was nice, but maybe it was too similar to his painting of Cattail Pond… No, no. He should at least give the Aurora Basin a shot, pun not intended. But tomorrow was no good, Saturday and Sunday called for rain, he didn’t have enough time Monday morning and Wednesday—

For his schedule on Wednesday, his phone read _Appointment, Downes 10:30 am_.

Tuesday it was.

His mind made up, Arthur abandoned his empty mug in the kitchen sink, and wandered into the bathroom to draw a bath. He deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ranch I mentioned with the bison? It’s where the Downes’ ranch is in the game. We’ll be meeting Thomas Downes soon (as you’ve read), and I wanted to have this chapter be the stand-in for the mission where Arthur and Charles hunt the bison and the bison poachers, so I wanted to tie those things together. 
> 
> Also: the conversation about Charles’ not having a major personal tragedy is mostly to poke at the fact that in a modern au, it just isn’t super realistic to give absolutely everyone the same backstory in a time with modern antibiotics and vaccines, and different social problems/different expressions of social oppression. So I decided to give Charles a family—a mom, a dad, and an older sister, who has two little kids that are absolute hellions but adore their Uncle Charles.


	9. Luck Let a Gentleman See

Friday mornings were nearly as busy as weekend mornings at Van Der Linde’s, and often, busier than Monday mornings. Arthur always suspected that a lot of their customers woke up on Friday mornings and decided to reward themselves for surviving the workweek by stopping in and getting a fancy coffee at the start of their day. On Fridays, the crowds were heavier, the rushes were longer, and the drinks were always more complicated.

Whatever the cause was, the hustle and bustle left Arthur little time to think about his upcoming date with John or to think about his recent conversations with Charles. For that, he was actually thankful.

As they reached the time of the end of the final morning rush, Arthur felt his phone vibrate with a notification while he was in the middle of making a cappuccino for a woman who he knew worked as a doctor at the hospital down the street. She and the other woman behind her were the last two people waiting in line, and Mary-Beth was already well underway in preparing the second woman’s iced coffee and Sean was preparing her muffin. Once he served the doctor her coffee with a kind smile, Arthur took his first moment to stop and breathe all morning and checked his phone.

It was a message from John.

_Do you want to go to Rhodes tonight?_

_?_ was all Arthur sent in return.

Rhodes was a dusty little town, full of rickety-looking buildings with peeling paint, and statues of Confederate soldiers that the town council had been refusing to take down for years. There wasn’t much that Rhodes had to offer that Limpany or Valentine couldn’t. Except, maybe, for the—

John replied.

_Casino? We can leave as soon as I get off work this afternoon_

Arthur sighed.

The Rhodes Parlor House casino was a seedy little place, an establishment that offered a few slot machines, a few video poker machines, and a few blackjack tables and cheap, lukewarm beer. Not that Arthur and John ever had any intention of checking in with the Lemoyne state government, but part of them wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t even a legal casino. It was on the second floor of an old saloon building, and it wasn’t exactly well known to anyone other than locals, and to the occasional college students from MacAlister that go there with their older friends as soon as they turn 21. Arthur had taken John there whenever he was old enough, ages ago.

Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he’d been there, but he and John used to go quite a lot when they were fresh-faced idiots who didn’t have a mortgage to pay or a child to raise.

The casino wasn’t… romantic. Not like the French bistro he and Abigail had gone to. But Arthur wasn’t expecting that kind of romance with John. He didn't really expect that kind of romance with Abigail, at least for the majority of the time—just for special occasions.

But if John wanted to go to the casino, they’d go to the casino.

 _Alright,_ he responded, adding, _but some of us have work in the morning, so no drunken benders._

_Sure thing, old man. I’ll pick you up at your house then since you’re on the way._

At around 1 in the afternoon, John came in to replace Arthur, and Kieran came in to take over for Sean. As they switched over, Arthur tried to get John’s attention, to corner him for a brief wink or for a significant brush of their hands. There was a moment where Arthur was certain John tried to do the same, but there were too many people on either side of the counter to justify it. Instead, as they passed each other, Arthur was only able to ask, “see you tonight?”

And John replied, “see you tonight.”

That afternoon, Arthur finished up on a few little details of his painting of Molly, including painting the little looping ALM signature in the bottom left corner, and printing the little laminated card that would go on the back of the canvas that, one day, would be used to prove it was a genuine painting by Arthur Morgan.

He decided to title the piece _Professor O’Shea Reading in the Shade_ because nearly all paintings were so imaginatively titled, and because he knew Molly would never let him forget it if he named it _Woman_ _Under a Tree._

Now, he just had to spray on the varnish once all of the paint was totally dry, wait for the frame he ordered to arrive, and then he would have to decide when he was going to give it to them. That was Arthur’s main conundrum. He would still need a few weeks for it to be totally ready. He could have it ready in time for Hosea’s birthday, at the end of May, but Arthur wanted it to be clear that it was a gift for all of them, and besides, Molly was Dutch’s girlfriend, not Hosea’s. It didn’t seem right. But it also didn’t seem right for him to just drive on over, let himself into the house and hang the painting himself, and just leave it for them to find.

Actually—

No, he wanted to be there when they saw the painting for the first time.

He’d figure something out.

Leaving the painting in question behind to finish drying, Arthur ambled over to his house from the studio above the garage. He was slightly dismayed to realize, as he walked across the little cobblestone walkway, that he was going to have to mow the grass soon. The delights of homeownership.

Arthur took a quick shower to get rid of the scent of paint and varnish that always seemed to follow him, and picked through his refrigerator for leftovers and other things he could snack on before John’s arrival, in lieu of a real meal, which… would have been too much, for the nerves seeking control of his stomach once more.

To pass the remaining time as he waited, Arthur sat on the couch, aimlessly scrolling through whatever apps and notifications on his phone that he’d ignored while painting, while Boadicea napped beside him, sprawled out on her back.

Arthur was expecting a message, or even a call, from John when he arrived, so he nearly jumped off of the couch whenever there was a less than delicate knock on his front door.

It was John, of course. When Arthur opened the front door, eyebrows raised, he stood there, looking innocent as could be, his arms folded against his chest.

Arthur sighed.

“Did you want to come in and pet Boadicea?”

“Always.” John pushed past Arthur, towards the doorway into the living room, where Boadicea was standing and waiting, her bushy tail swinging back and forth behind her.

John had been moving from apartment to apartment his entire adulthood, and not all of them had allowed pets. For as long as he and Abigail had been married, he’d been wanting to get a dog or a cat, and his wish had only gotten worse since Jack was born. But as neither of them were sure how long it would be until they had a house of their own, and because Jack, despite being the most precocious kid Arthur had ever seen, he was still a handful at his age, the Marstons weren’t sure when they’d get a pet.

Until that mysterious point in the future, John had to live vicariously through Arthur with Boadicea, and through Dutch and Hosea with The Count and Silver Dollar.

It was—well, Arthur wasn’t sure if _endearing_ was the right word, but it was something.

While John crouched down to spoil Boadicea with his attention, Arthur strolled down the hall and grabbed a jacket from his bedroom. Upon returning, John was still kneeling on the floor, scratching the cat on the head, right between the ears, and did not look like he wanted to stop anytime soon.

Arthur cleared his throat.

“You ready?”

Begrudgingly, John stood and nodded, saying a little goodbye to the cat.

John waited beside him on the front porch while Arthur locked up, and together, they ambled down the front steps together, slower than usual, as they approached John’s car, where he had parked on the side of the street.

Arthur slid into the passenger seat and was faced with the evening’s first pang of nostalgia.

Dutch and Hosea had taught John how to drive when he was a little shithead of a 16-year-old since his own father had always been too drunk to drive himself, let alone being lucid enough to teach his son. Dutch and Hosea had taught John the basics, but at some point, they’d made it Arthur’s jobs to make sure John really knew what he was doing, and to help him build his confidence as he got in some practice behind the wheel.

Dutch and Hosea insisted it was because Arthur knew how to communicate things better with John. Arthur thought it was because neither of their nerves could handle the constant life-or-death danger that came with being in the passenger seat as John drove.

He had, since then, gotten… better at driving. But not good enough that Arthur didn’t automatically grasp onto the handle on the door, just in case.

John sped down the street, turned onto one of Limpany’s main thoroughfares, heading south and towards the highway to Rhodes. They chatted, a little bit, about what the afternoon had brought to Van Der Linde’s Coffee and Tea, and about how Arthur spent his afternoon in his studio. As the houses of Limpany grew further and further apart, and their little city turned into Heartland countryside, they merged onto the highway. Just as they passed the leveled ground of the old Flatneck Station, John glanced over at Arthur, and said, “Abigail laughed when I told her we were going to the casino. She called us _glorified man-children_ for going to that place again.”

“Yeah, I can’t say I blame her for that one.”

“What, are you too good to go inside of that place anymore?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just not exactly a glamorous first date location, is all.”

John took his eyes off of the road precisely as long as he needed to glare, incredulously, at Arthur.

“What?” He scoffed. “You want glamor? Do you think _I_ want glamor? I mean, if you want glamor, we could always stop by the Cornwall’s store and buy some bandanas to wear around our faces and pull a casino heist. That’s pretty glamorous.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Arthur chuckled, folding his hands in his lap. “I’m sure we’d make excellent casino robbers. I’m sure we’d make it out with all thirty dollars they keep in their safe.”

John laughed, loud and earnest as he changed lanes.

“Come on, they’ve probably got at least fifty.”

“I think we’d have to rob the bar to get any money.”

“Eh, I’ll give you that one.”

As the old oak and elm trees flashed by along the side of the highway with the occasional peek at the lake beyond, they indulged in the nostalgia and traded alcohol-filtered memories of their past trips to the casino. Most of them involved one or the other, or perhaps both, getting very drunk. Arthur took a great deal of pleasure out of reminding John that the first time Arthur took him to the Parlor House, the night ended with John throwing up in an alleyway and making a poorly considered phone call at two in the morning to Dutch and Hosea apologizing for not listening to all of their lessons about managing his money or their lessons about playing poker, and losing everything. More than one story ended with one accusing the other of either being a liar or just being too drunk to remember what really happened.

Then they settled into a warm silence that left both of them smiling little half-smiles. That silence was broken by John, a few minutes later, just as they passed the border into Lemoyne.

“So, how did your date with Abigail go?”

Arthur stopped. He didn’t know what to say.

“Hasn’t… hasn’t she told you every detail already?”

“She did. I wasn’t deeply asleep when she got back so she woke me up climbing into bed. And then she told me everything, even though I had to be up early for the morning shift. Speaking of which, I made Sean miserable for the two of you the day after.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Anyway, that was my polite way of asking for your side of things.”

Arthur looked over at him, as John kept his eyes very intently on the road and tried to look incredibly casual.

“Well,” Arthur said slowly, looking out the side window to admire the view of the steadily sloping hill down to the lake. “I thought it was lovely. Aside from Sean and Karen’s unexpected cameo, and our waiter being a smug piece of shit, everything went well.”

“Mmhmm.” John hummed, his voice sounding a little… skeptical, maybe?

“What? What else do you want to know? Your wife kisses on the first date?”

That got a laugh out of him and got him to relax again.

“Oh, yeah, she’s a real trollop, kissing a man she’s already had sex with.”

And Arthur didn’t even bother trying not to laugh in return, but even as he laughed, John fidgeted a little in the driver’s seat, clearly uncomfortable with something.

“Just, did it go well?” He asked again.

“I thought I already said that it did.”

“But—do you—” John sighed again and changed lanes. With a slow breath, he asked, “do you want a second date?”

“Yes?” Arthur said, immediately regretting the implied question in his voice. Quickly, before John could get the wrong idea, he added, “if I ever gave you the impression otherwise, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to.”

“No, you didn’t, it’s just that...” He took another steadying breath. “I—I just, I don’t want you to feel like we’re ganging up on you, because we’re married and are already… established. It’s not a two-against-one kind of thing. I don’t want you to feel pressured to agree to anything, if you’re not really into it, or if it’s not really what you want, just because Abigail and I suggest something, or do something.”

Arthur nearly laughed but knew that wouldn’t settle well with John. Not now.

So he answered, his voice quiet.

“I have never felt that way.”

“I’m glad,” John said, quietly.

There were other things that either one of them could have said, about what they wanted and expected out of their new, or newly different, relationship, but it didn’t seem like the right time. So, they both decided to let the conversation lie where it was and let the rest of the ride pass in relative quiet.

Relative, in that it was interrupted by John loudly snorting as a he remembered a fishing trip to the lake that the two of them made with Dutch and Hosea made nearly a decade before, and decided to start teasing Arthur about how he’d caught everything but a fish on his hook, including Dutch’s hat and the skin of Arthur’s own arm.

They really hadn’t gone fishing that often, the four of them, since then.

Arthur… couldn’t say he was all that disappointed.

By the time Arthur had gotten over John’s teasing about how surprised he was that Arthur had never gotten a fishing hook caught in his own mouth, they were in Rhodes. They parted from the highway at the north end of town, by an old and decrepit barn, and parked in a large parking lot by the train station. The Parlor House was a bit of a stroll away, but it was where they always parked before… mostly because the parking there was free, and they needed to save their money in order to lose it later.

Walking side by side down the sidewalk, they walked past the old buildings of Rhodes and gave a few friendly nods to the handful of people they passed along the way. Rhodes was usually a quiet town, and that Friday evening was no different from every other sleepy evening.

The first floor of the Parlor House was a bit of a dive bar, with greasy food and numerous TVs that were constantly showing different sports games. Rather than go inside, they took the back stairway up to the casino, with John making a grand, gentlemanly sweeping motion with his arm to indicate _after you_ to Arthur. Arthur repaid the favor by holding the door open for John with an exaggeratedly serious look on his face like he was John’s butler or something.

Inside, a bored-looking employee waved them inside after confirming with a quick glance that Arthur and John were indeed fully grown adults who were allowed to be there. The casino floor was dimly lit, with one light along the western wall that was constantly flickering, and even though the casino hadn’t allowed smoking inside for as long as Arthur had ever known it, the white walls seemed dingy and yellowed with years of the build-up of cigarette smoke. On the floor, there was a hideously patterned primary colored carpet that was worthy of an airport or the upholstery on the seats of a city bus.

Absolutely nothing had changed in the six or seven years since Arthur and John had last visited.

They exchanged some cash for quarters at a dinky little metal machine that didn’t accept their bills the first four or five times they tried to feed them in. Then they stopped by the bar and got two warm and shitty cheap beers that certainly did not make them nostalgic for their early 20s, when that was the only kind of beer they drank, and settled down at a blackjack table where two other men sat, both of whom looked a little depressed and were more than halfway to drunk.

Arthur and John said a few quiet hellos to the other players and to the dealer and waited quietly until it was time for the next round of betting.

As they waited, and as the dealer dealt the cards and they waited for their own turns, the two talked quietly, leaning halfway towards each other and muttering in soft tones. Arthur told John about his plans to visit the Aurora Basin in a few days, which inspired Arthur to turn his head away from the table and mutter to John, “you know, we could have gone to Blackwater and gone to a real casino?”

And John snorted.

“Where would the fun be in that?”

Arthur won a couple of dollars on that first hand while John pushed and won nothing. As they waited for the dealer to pass out the new cards, John decided to ask if Arthur had heard anything new from Dutch or Hosea about the letter from Cornwall. Their lawyer, Josiah, was only just getting back from vacation the following morning, and in the meantime, Dutch had apparently avoided any serious moments of emotional distress as they waited for the official letter from Cornwall asking to buy Flatneck Station. John seemed to think that, with Trelawney’s return, he would know what to do to get Cornwall to give up and move on, and the problem would be solved. Arthur didn’t agree, and said as much, as they both busted and lost their bets.

“I’m just worried. You know how Dutch can get. I don’t want him putting all of his time and energy into fighting with all of the employees of a man he hates who he’s never going to meet. It would be just as effective if he were to just forget that Cornwall ever reaches out to him and Hosea about that land, and figure out what they’re going to do with that land to get Cornwall off of their backs. But I, I just have this feeling that that’s not what’s going to happen.”

John nods, a little uneasy, agreeing Arthur might be right.

Arthur cleared his throat and was about to apologize for bringing up Dutch and Hosea on what was, in fact, a date, but they were both distracted as dealer flipped over his second card to reveal he had blackjack, and they both sighed and forfeited their bets.

From there, somehow, the conversation turned to Jack. Arthur asked about how he was doing in school, despite already knowing the boy was doing excellently, and after John finished talking about the most recent art project Jack brought home from school (a charmingly smushed and lopsided clay turtle), Arthur asked about all of the ways Jack was keeping busy outside of school.

“You’re making me feel like a sentimental idiot, you know. He’s sticking with swimming lessons and piano, and thank god soccer is nearly over with. I don’t mind taking him to practice or anything, but those other parents are infuriating. And then—Abigail and I just asked him what he wanted to do over the summer, and he said he

“Tennis? Where did he get that from? Does he even know anyone who—never mind.”

“Who?”

“Hosea.”

Just like he had with fishing, Shakespeare, and the delicate art of antique restorations, Hosea had tried to get both Arthur and John into playing tennis, mostly so that he could have someone to play with since Dutch never really had the temperament for it. Dutch just didn’t have the temperament for anything that involved sweating and wearing anything less formal than slacks and a button-down, in Arthur’s opinion.

John rolled his eyes and decided to just push the conversation along.

“Anyway, he has a piano recital, next month. I can’t say I’m looking forward to going to watch as a dozen kindergartners all play ‘Old McDonald’ and ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so excited to show off what he’s learned to us.”

“When’s the recital?”

“Either the first or second Sunday of May. It’s in the evening, at one of the churches in town.”

A very, very smug grin stretched across Arthur’s face, and John, from the corner of his eye, saw the growing expression. He winced before Arthur could even begin to taunt him.

“What? Are you finally getting over your fear of churches?”

“Arthur—“

“You hoping someone will actually be there to catch you this time, keep you from falling?”

“Fuck you too, Arthur.”

“Maybe this time you’ll land on the other side of your face, so the new scars balance out the old ones.”

“As I said, fuck you,” John muttered as the dealer gave John his second card, a king, giving John a blackjack.

Arthur rolled his eyes again.

Maybe a dozen or so hands later, both Arthur and John realized that luck wasn’t really on their side at the blackjack table that night, so nodded a goodbye to their dealer, took their chips, and got in line at the bar again. Since they’d arrived, maybe a dozen more or so people filtered into the room, and honestly, most of them seemed to be at the bar, ahead of them in the line.

They stand together, shoulders brushing, as they wait.

John, for whatever reason, decided to bring up Sean and Karen and their eternally rocky relationship. Arthur decided to poke a little fun at John by reminding him that John and Abigail had once been just as bad as Sean and Karen, if not worse, which earned him a well-deserved elbow to the rib.

Then the conversation jumped in a direction Arthur wasn’t expecting, just as they ordered two more of the sad, disappointing beers from the bartender.

“At least Mary-Beth and Kieran aren’t as bad.”

“Mary-Beth and Kieran?” The combination of names seemed awkward and disconcerting on Arthur’s tongue—he had to run through the list of people he knew named Mary-Beth and Kieran just to make sure that John wasn’t talking about some other Mary-Beth and Kieran, when of course he wasn’t. Arthur didn't even know anyone else named Mary-Beth or Kieran, let alone an alternate Mary-Beth and Kieran who knew each other.  

“Well, not yet. You haven’t seen the two of them together?”

Arthur racked his brain and tried to remember every single time both Mary-Beth and Kieran had been scheduled to work together. Mary-Beth didn’t have classes on Friday, so she worked Friday, Saturday, and Sundays and Kieran’s schedule was a little more irregular, but…

“No. I’ve worked with the both of them maybe once or twice, and that hasn’t been for weeks.”

“Oh, it’s adorable. Kieran’s smitten with her, and she’s far too clever for him and he’s too nervous to realize that she’s been flirting with him for a while. I'm sure at some point one of them is just going to break down and say something, but it'll be amusing until then.”

Arthur laughed quietly, to himself, imagining Mary-Beth’s sly innuendos and Kieran’s nervous stutter.

“I’ll keep an eye out for that.”

Their new, equally as horrible drinks in hand, they decided to try their hands at the slot machines, if only because it was easier to hold a conversation while they played. And, they had the most comfortable seats in the house. John arbitrarily picked two machines next to each other that he was certain would bring them good luck, and the two of them began to waste their money.

As they played and drank, they talked. They spent quite a lot of time making up elaborate backstories about the strangers they saw around them. It was a game they’d been playing for years. Most of the stories were absolute bullshit, and one that John came up with involved a man on the opposite corner of the dingy casino as an undercover operative for the Pinkerton Detectives, who John only recently learned still existed.

Arthur was not afraid to call John on his bullshit, as always.

As their game ended, they began needling each other with all of the things they could do with the vast fortune they were surely about to win from their slot machines at any given moment. Arthur finished his second drink just moments before John suggest Arthur could blow all of his money on all of the fancy bubbles and oils for his bath as he wished. Arthur was glad he didn’t have cheap, shitty beer in his mouth, or he would have choked.

“When in the hell have I ever talked to you about my bath-taking habits?”

“You didn’t, but I’ve seen your bathtub.”

“What to do you mean? When did you—”

“I helped you install it, you idiot, you were there. That is the bathtub of someone who intends to light a bunch of candles and try to boil themselves alive on a weekly basis."  

He wasn't exactly wrong... but Arthur certainly wasn't going to let him know that. 

“It’s good for the resale value," he insisted, trying to keep himself from cracking and smiling.  

John laughed, twice.

“The resale value my ass. I knew I was on to something with that bath...”

John smiled and fed another quarter into his machine, to receive two quarters in return.

Arthur didn’t have any idea what else he could say in retaliation, so he said nothing. Instead, as a certain feeling of giddiness bloomed within his chest, Arthur set his empty glass of beer aside and let one hand rest on John’s leg, just above his knee. He deliberately ignored John’s pointed smirk and lost another quarter to the machine.

They sit there for a while, poking fun at each other, and, on occasion, quite literally poking at each other as the teasing got more and more childish. When it finally becomes uncomfortable for Arthur’s arm to keep his hand on John’s leg, he and John move slightly, so that their knees occasionally brushed against the other.

It was… nice. No, that wasn’t really the right word. But Arthur was content, and John was still smiling, so he was glad they’d come to the Parlor House despite Abigail’s jokes.

They cashed in their chips a little after midnight, mindful of Arthur’s morning shift. John had lost about 10 dollars, and Arthur was very pleased to note that he had managed to make two whole dollars out of their night.

Going down the steps, Arthur felt a little bow-legged and clumsy in the dark.

Walking much more slowly back to their parking space than when they had arrived, the two of them strolled down the sidewalk, side by side, and joked about the fortune Arthur had made at the tables, and the financial ruin John’s family was about to experience because of his significant losses.

“Don’t worry,” Arthur said as they turned a corner. “I’ll provide for you in your difficult times.” And that, he knew for sure this time, was flirting. Judging by the way John looked down at his feet and the flash of the smile on his face, he knew it too.

And then, a few more steps down the sidewalk, Arthur saw his chance to ruin it all, and he took it.

He stopped, directly in the mouth of an alleyway as they passed.

“There it is. The alleyway you drunkenly threw up in the first time we came down here.” Arthur stood with his legs apart and his head tilted to the side like he was admiring a great work of art hung on a museum wall, even as John grabbed onto his arm and tried to steer him around, back onto the proper sidewalk. “Ah, the memories.”

“Shut up.”

“Take a look at it, John.” Arthur wrapped an arm around John’s shoulders and pulled him in, against his side, forcing John to look at the dark alley, lit only by the light of the streetlamp spilling in from around the corner of the brick building. Even as the smell of rotting garbage began to tickle at their noses, Arthur would not let John move away from the alley. “Relive all of those memories—if you weren’t too drunk to remember them.”

“Arthur—” John tried half-heartedly to pull away, but Arthur did not let him go.

“It probably wasn’t as exciting of a night as whatever you did before that time Mary walked into my apartment one morning to find your naked ass sleeping on my kitchen floor.” He said, his smile growing ever wider as John rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, still don’t remember what happened then,” John said, his voice flat and begrudging. “Now, can we go?”

But Arthur continued on, looking into the shadows, ignoring the burning look that John was giving him.

“Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t nearly as debauched as the night of your bachelor party, when you—”

“For god’s sake,” John snapped. “I liked it better when you were flirting with me, you know.”

“I figured you might,” Arthur said, his voice dropping lower than he really meant. It felt like something was growing in his throat. “Based on the way you were blushing and smiling.”

For three entire rushing beats of Arthur’s heart, John was flustered. It was too dark to see if he was blushing, but there was more than enough light for Arthur to see how John’s mouth gaped open, and how, as John turned into him to face him, his eyes darted around as he searched for something to say.

“You’re a fucking tease, you know that.” He settled on saying, a smirk creeping on to John’s face as he took one step forward, his head now held high.

“Yeah,” Arthur admitted, halving the distance between them so that they were nearly chest-to-chest.

“You wanna kiss me already?”

“You could kiss me yourself, you brat.”

John’s hands shot up and clutched at the front of Arthur’s jacket, and pulled him in even closer. It was almost a threatening gesture, except for that it was for that it entirely wasn’t. “You’re calling me a brat? You dick,” he said, his voice full of amusement and disbelief.

Without another thought, Arthur pushed John back, up against the brick wall. One hand settled on John’s waist and the other rested on the wall above John’s shoulder as Arthur bent over just the slightest and kissed John.

It was, as far as kisses up against a brick wall in a shady back alleyway went, gentle and sweet. It was Arthur’s apology—or, maybe just a promise of a ceasefire, with no real admission of guilt—for all of the teasing. John breathed in deeply, and the longer they kissed, the looser that John’s grasp of Arthur’s jacket became. By the time that John’s hands were just resting on Arthur’s chest, Arthur pulled back, opening his eyes searching John’s face for any sign of where they should go next.

But John’s eyes did not open. He just leaned forward, briefly kissing Arthur in return

“My turn,” John whispered.

Arthur laughed, breathless.

“I didn’t realize we needed to take turns. I guess we did promise Abigail we would be on our best behavior.”

“What was that Abigail said about us being glorified children?”

On a whim, Arthur tiled his head to the side and pressed a single kiss to the old, faded, parallel scars that ran across John’s jaw.

“As I said, she’s not wrong.”

With an absentminded sigh, Arthur took John by the wrist and they walked together, down the deserted street and back to the car.

During the ride home, they were mostly silent. The dark and quiet of the car and the dreamy look of the stars in the sky settled deep into Arthur’s bones as they got closer and closer to New Hanover, and closer and closer to home. He wasn’t quite in danger of falling asleep right in the car, but he certainly felt relaxed, and his eyelids dropped under the weight of his long day.

The sense of relaxation loosened his tongue.

“We’ll have to do something else soon. Something as the three of us.” He said, remembering the conversation in the car on the way to the casino. If going forward with this was what he wanted, he should try and show John and Abigail that it was true. “We could probably get Hosea to watch Jack without making him too suspicious. Maybe he could start those tennis lessons.”

Hosea had an indiscriminate paternal streak and adored every moment he had with Jack.

“I’d like that.” John murmured. “It’ll be a busy few weeks, though.”

And didn’t Arthur know it.

“Don’t remind me.”

“What? You’re not looking forward to the party next weekend—“

“You know I am not, and I never am.”

John laughed, a devious, self-serving laugh that Arthur knew was entirely at his expense.

They'd survived many of Dutch's parties before, and they would survive another.  

When they got back to Arthur’s house, they said an almost bashful goodbye. It was punctuated by a quick peck on the lips that, in the yellowish dome light of John’s car, made him Arthur far more self-conscious than he had when they kissed in the alleyway earlier.

With a final bid to John to drive safely, he got out of the car, let himself into his house, and only just remembered to set his alarm for the morning before he fell asleep, exhausted and content and… accomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, part of this chapter was just me having fun with the fact that Arthur, with the men he knows and is close to, teases them to show affection (which I relate to bc it is the one singular way I know how to show affection (I'm only exaggerating a little)) and me having some fun translating little things from the game into a modern au. 
> 
> Also, this is supposed to be the stand-in for the mission where Arthur and John rob the train of rich people, but because there was literally no reason to have modern Arthur stand on top of an oil wagon with a gun, I decided to convert that to something that was almost as attractive, which was pushing someone up against a wall in the dark and kissing them. 
> 
> And for the record: I see why many people hc Arthur as a bottom/sub, but listen: John is more of a bottom/sub than Arthur will ever be (and Abigail is their dom)


	10. The Wonders of Modern Medicine

Wednesday was _supposed_ to be Arthur’s day off.

Wednesday was usually the day that Arthur slept in—no early morning trips to the gym, no forcing himself to walk across the little garden path to his studio at sunrise. He always worked on Saturdays and Sundays, but he felt like he deserved at least one day in his life that he could take at an easier pace. And usually, he took that day on Wednesday.

But here he was, waking up with the sun like he had nearly every other day of his adult life.

Arthur didn’t want to get out of bed. He didn’t want to wake up. He didn’t want to drive into Saint Denis. He really didn’t want to move at all, or do anything, especially because Boadicea was curled up, sleeping against his leg on top of his covers, and she looked so pleasant and sweet that he felt guilty even thinking about disturbing her.

But Arthur was a grown adult, with responsibilities, and that included responsibilities to himself. Besides, not only was it a pain in the ass to cancel and reschedule a doctor’s appointment anyway, but also his insurance company was less of a pain in the ass about his meds if he jumped through all of their hoops. And that meant seeing his doctor.

So Arthur woke his cat, who looked up at him with hooded green eyes before she reluctantly pulled herself to the foot of the bed and went back to sleep. And then he crawled out of bed with a dramatic sigh, took a quick shower and dressed in the first t-shirt and jeans his hands could grab. Then he shuffled into his dated little kitchen, brewed himself a cup of coffee and mindlessly ate a bowl of cereal, while he answered the two messages that had been waiting for him on his phone. One, from Abigail, a quick _drive safely_ with her preferred heart emoji, the other from Mary, confirming their lunch plans.

Ten minutes later, Arthur was sitting in his car, selecting the perfect music to play during his drive.

The drive to Saint Denis was a little long, and a bit of a pain in the ass. But Arthur was used to it—he’d been making the trip to go to the galleries that displayed his works, to meet with colleagues and old friends from college, and to go to his neurologist, for most of his adult life. But that didn’t mean that he liked it.

There were, of course, other neurologists between Limpany and Saint Denis that Arthur could have seen. There was a decent one up in Valentine, another down in Blackwater, one in Rhodes. But it was Dutch who had ended up scheduling that first appointment, and Dutch was the sort of man who lived by the words _nothing but the best_ and made other people who claimed to live by the same philosophy look like irreverent cheapskates. And when it came to multiple sclerosis, there wasn’t anyone better to be found for hundreds of miles than Dr. Thomas Downes.

He made the drive in decent time, and arrived ten minutes earlier than he expected, even if traffic was a bitch. The receptionist at the office remembered him, and greeted him with a kind smile before handing him the first of many clipboards with paperwork for him to fill out, this one all about his health insurance information, which had not changed at all since his last appointment. There were two other clipboards with questions about his next of kin and his symptoms over the past year. Again, there had been precisely no change to anything since his last appointment.

The appointment itself went quick enough. Arthur’s medications were all working as well as they could, his symptoms no better and no worse than the last time they’d talked. Dr. Downes asked about how Arthur was keeping up with his diet, exercise, and work-life balance. Arthur asked about how Dr. Downes’ wife and teenage son were doing. They both shared their plans for the upcoming summer, and how they would spend their time. Then they parted with a friendly reminder from Dr. Downes that he should call him or email him as soon as he began another relapse.

The appointment was so quick and simple that it left Arthur precisely in the middle of a useless amount of free time—not enough time to really do something, but too much time before he was supposed to meet Mary to just go to the little cafe and wait for her there.

He ended up just sitting on a park bench down the street from the restaurant in the springtime sun, listening to a trumpet player performing for the passing tourists and wishing he’d brought a sketchbook or something so he would have something to do with his hands that didn’t drain his phone’s battery.

It was nice, and no one bothered him.

Mary was five minutes early, as always. Arthur spotted her walking down the street, her hair tied back in a long braid, her oversized sunglasses reflecting the colors of the trees and flowers and pedestrians she passed by. She wore her mother’s old broach on her jacket.

“Arthur.” She called out, a split second after Arthur saw her. She took little, scampering steps along the sidewalk to hurry to Arthur’s side, winding through the other people ambling along the street.

“Mary,” Arthur replied as Mary wrapped her arms around his shoulders, Arthur lightly patting her on the back. She smelled of the same perfume she’d been wearing for as long as Arthur had known her, something that smelled like amber and jasmine that, despite himself, Arthur would never be able to not love.

“How was your appointment?” She asked, pulling back. “You look well. Are you feeling well?”

“It was fine—I’m fine. I’m as well as I can be.”

“I’m glad.” She said, giving him that old smile of hers, and then a gentle, playful pull of his arm. “Come on, I’m starving.”

As they walked down the rest of the street to the little cafe they had agreed on for lunch, Mary regaled Arthur with stories from her job in public relations and advertising, at a little firm that mostly worked for local businesses. As they took a seat and checked over the menu, Mary asked Arthur about both his job in the coffee shop and his art. After they ordered Arthur asked about her husband, the wedding, and their honeymoon plans. Her husband was well, the wedding was lovely with the obvious exception of the ill-timed snowstorm, and because Mary’s new husband was a teacher, they were waiting until his summer break to go to Mexico for a week.

Arthur only made a few jokes at her father’s expense, about how his frugality probably made him very reluctant to pay for the wedding and how he probably drank up most of the open bar himself. Pretty tame jokes, in Arthur’s opinion—Mary didn’t really agree. Mary glared at him from across the little round table, but Arthur reminded her that it just wouldn’t be a real lunch between the two of them if Arthur didn’t make a few well-deserved jabs at Mr. Gillis.

She continued to stare straight at him, her eyes bitter, and retaliated for his teasing by flicking the little-wadded up ball of straw paper her across the table at him, hitting him squarely in the stomach. Arthur glared at her, matching the ire molded across her face, and after a few moments passed, their eyes met, and the two of them cracked and laughed.

Fifteen years ago, all of his time spent with Mary had been like that.

Fifteen years ago, spending time with Mary had been as easy as breathing.

Arthur had long past given up trying to figure out what exactly led to the destruction of his and Mary’s relationship. They were both young, and probably way too determined to be successful, to get married and to prove that they could have a perfect relationship, so absorbed in that that they ignored their problems that they did not realize that things between them were far from perfect.

At some point, they couldn’t stand to be around each other—not long after they graduated from college, they could have no conversation without devolving into an argument about their future, their plans, their lives and their families. As soon as they realized the other one did not want the life the other had in mind for themselves, they just kept arguing and bickering, until eventually, Mary told him not to bother proposing with the ring she knew he’d been hiding. She had moved out of Limpany and into a friend’s apartment in Saint Denis to start at her new job by the end of that month.

But picking it apart now was not useful, not to Arthur, and not to Mary, if that was something she ever thought about.

But things were genial, now. It hadn’t always been that way, but after a particularly dark point in Arthur’s life, she had reached out to him to make sure he was okay, and Arthur decided he wasn’t going to let one more relationship fade into dust. They could still be friends, after all. They were both essentially the same people as they were when they dated, just with the worst of their rough edges sanded down, a little more experience under their belts, and a few more scratches and blemishes on their surfaces.

Mary came to every one of Arthur’s gallery events in Saint Denis, and even made it to a few out in Limpany. Every time Arthur was in Saint Denis for one of his doctor’s appointments, or for a meeting with a gallery owner, they made plans to meet up for lunch. And, ever since the incident with the Chelonians, he’d been trying to keep tabs on Mary’s younger brother, Jamie, just in case.

But they would never be as close as they’d been before.

It was strange to think about how Mary might have actually found the happiness they were certain they’d found together all those years ago. It wasn’t that Arthur was unhappy, and now—well, there was too much up in the air to say if he had that happiness yet.

“What about you, have you met anyone new?”

_Oh, of course, she’d ask._

“Eh,” Arthur said, stalling to take a sip of his water and to clear his throat. He tried not to think of Charles, to think of John and Abigail. If Sadie, who was a dear friend but who had only known Arthur for maybe eight months, could read him so easily, he knew Mary of all people would be able to—

Across the table, Mary’s eyes narrowed once again.

It was a familiar expression.

She was already suspicious.

_Damnit_.

Mary and Abigail had never really had any reason to get to know each other. Mary had already moved to Saint Denis by the time Abigail moved to Limpany. And even though both women had met at Arthur’s gallery events a time or two, they’d never really talked. Arthur couldn’t help but be grateful for that fact. Neither one had the patience for his worst faults—for his apathy, or for his fatalism. They were both quick, clever, protective, stubborn as hell, and somehow they were able to call Arthur a _fool_ or many words much worse and make it sound like an endearment. If they ever had any reason to get to know each other or befriend each other, it would be… dangerous.

And Mary knew John well. Arguably, she knew him too well. Mary broke up with Arthur only a few days after the horrible trauma of seeing a college-aged John Marston’s skinny naked ass on Arthur’s kitchen floor. Surprisingly, that had not influenced Mary’s decision to break up with him in any way—he wouldn’t have blamed her if it had. John was real gangly and skinny at that age.

“Not really.” Arthur finally answered. He was not lying. John and Abigail were as old of friends as Arthur could really get. And Charles—he was still so far away from knowing anything about what direction that might go. Arthur was getting more comfortable with the realization that he was attracted to Charles, but there’s no use talking about—

“Your voice says that there’s some kind of caveat or disclaimer on that statement, Arthur.”

_Damnit_.

Arthur takes a sip of his water, buying himself just a little more time—

“Don’t you hide behind your water, Arthur Morgan.”

“Fine.” He set his glass down and looked over both of shoulders, just in case Dutch and Hosea were sitting at a table next to them, eavesdropping. Arthur had no reason to think they would be, but you never really know with those two. With a deep breath to steady his voice, Arthur said, “I’ve recently started dating both John and Abigail Marston, and, the photographer Charles Smith has moved to Limpany to teach and we may or may not be flirting. I’m not sure.”

Mary stared at him, her face unchanging.

“Okay...” She said, drawing out every letter of the word, sitting forward in her chair. “Well, let’s take this one at a time. Let’s start with Charles Smith. Is he _that_ Charles Smith?”

“Yes.”

“And when did you meet him?”

“Uh...” Arthur worked through the math in his head. Saying _the day after your wedding_ seemed a little too precise like he was obsessing over one event or the other. “About a month ago.”

“And have you been flirting with him?”

“Maybe. And he may have been flirting with me, I’m not sure.”

“Oh, Arthur, I’m well aware of how bad you are at figuring out if someone’s flirting with you. Please continue.”

He paused.

“Continue with what?”

“How did you meet?”

Arthur fought back a smile, already awaiting Mary’s reaction.

“Well, he was offered a job at MacAlister for the summer, so he reached out to Albert Mason to ask about the town. Al told him that I still lived there, and told Charles how to track me down.”

Mary’s face lit up at the mention of their old friend.

“Oh, how’s Al?”

“He broke his leg in Sumatra ‘cause of some orangutans, but I think he’s fine.” Mary never even flinched but nodded him along anyway. “Charles, uh, introduced himself to me at the coffee shop one morning, and we’ve run into each other a time or two—” Arthur thought about this words a split second after he spoke. Was that time at the riverbank really the only time they’d spent together outside of the coffee shop? “And that’s about it.”

And then Arthur realized—he never even got Charles’ phone number. He should get that from him, the next time they see each other, for professional reasons, if nothing else.

“And you suspect he is flirting with you?”

Arthur sighs.

“Yes. He may be. He doesn’t seem like a really flirty person, he’s kind of quiet and serious, but not unfriendly—” Arthur says, rushing to defend Charles without having any reason to, “and, it’s possible he may be flirting. He might also just be… networking.”

Mary nods, and the conversation stalls as their waitress arrived and delivered their salads. Once the young woman disappeared with the promise that their lunches would be out soon, Mary need only give Arthur a prodding look, and to ask, “And the Marstons?”

And that was a subject that was a little more concrete to Arthur, and just a little more precious and private because of it. So he decided, at that moment, that it was one thing to tell Sadie, one of his best friends with whom he shared no strange and convoluted history, about his sex life—telling Mary was another. He would avoid the whole sex thing.

“Well, I mean, they asked if I wanted to date the both of them. And, I said yes. I’ve only gone on one date with each of them, but it’s been… nice. They’re both important to me.”

“Did they ask out of the blue?”

_No—yes._

“Kind of. I mean, I guess we’ve always been close,” _really_ close, a demonic little voice in the back of Arthur’s mind piped-in, “and I might have flirted with them in the past—I think I was mostly joking—but, you know. And isn’t exactly foreign to us that we might be happy as the three of us.”

“No, I know.” Mary had gone to more than a few Sunday night dinners at Dutch and Hosea’s house, back when they were in college, back when Annabelle and Bessie were still alive. “Did those dates go well?”

“Really well.”

She gave him a soft but serious look from across the little cafe table.

“I know you said it’s early… but are you happy?”

“I think so.”

“Good. You deserve to be happy.”

They moved onto more comfortable subjects as soon as their food came, and they talked and joked and laughed until it was time for Mary to return to work and for Arthur to drive back to Limpany. They parted with a brief hug and a promise that they would meet up again in a few weeks, when Mary came out to Limpany for Jamie’s graduation from MacAlister.

Arthur was quiet, and contemplative on the way home. His lunch with Mary had taken a lot out of him—and not in the way that their old passive aggressive arguments had.

Before going straight home, Arthur decided to stop by Limpany’s hardware store, a place he’d been quite a regular at, after he’d first moved into his house. He was in the process of getting about a dozen samples of paint colors and making small talk as the poor clerk behind the counter mixed them all when his phone pinged with a notification from Abigail.

_hey, do you want to come over for dinner? John’s making lasagna. it should be ready at 6, if you want to come over_

And a second message arrived as soon as Arthur finished reading the first.

_it’s just a normal dinner. i thought i should clarify_

Arthur had been planning on spending how whole afternoon and evening sorting through his reference photos of the Aurora Basin, but… he didn’t need more than an hour to do that, did he?

So he answered, _of course, i’ll be there_

Arthur doesn’t spend all that much time at home before he has to leave again. He picks through some of his photos of the Aurora Basin and finds his favorite perspective of the water and the steep hills beyond. He thinks that they’ll do quite nicely as references, but decides he’ll want to go down and get more photos at sunset someday. Or maybe sunrise.

On second thought, maybe he’ll do both.

Then he got in a little time to play with Boadicea and her mouse-on-a-string toy, and freshened up a little before he took off again.

Jack greeted him at the front door, as usually happened. He led Arthur into the little kitchen at the back of the house, where John was pulling a loaf of garlic bread from the oven, and Abigail was leaning against the kitchen table, straightening out the forks and knives set at the places around the table. As they looked away from their respective chores, they greeted Arthur with warm smiles and bright eyes.

Dinner was nice, as always. John’s cooking had gotten significantly better than when he was younger when he was notorious for eating whatever horrid combination of food he could get his hands on. Abigail had made a salad—one thing she could reliably make—and popped the cork on a semi-decent bottle of wine. Most of the conversation was led by Jack, who shared stories about his music class and the kind of drama that could only occur among kindergarteners on the school’s playground. Arthur talked a little bit about his appointment and lunch with Mary, and John brought Arthur up to speed on what went on at Van Der Linde’s that day.

But most of the conversation, and most of the wine was saved for when Jack had finished his dinner and scampered off to finish a book he’d checked out from the school library.

Once Jack had settled in in the other room, John and Abigail asked Arthur if his appointment really had gone well, that he hadn’t danced around any problems for Jack’s sake.

“No, no. I’m as fine as I can be.”

“And lunch with Mary?”

“It was nice.” Arthur said, sipping at his wine to give himself a little moment to transition into things, and a little bravery too. “I might have—she might have—well. You know she—”

“You told her about us?” John’s voice was entirely neutral. Neither he nor Abigail looked disappointed, nor did they look angry or surprised, but there was something in them that perked up even as sat around the little kitchen table.

“Nothing explicit. But you know, I can’t hide anything from her.” And, as an afterthought, as a handful of memories came flashing through his mind, he added, “ _still_.”

“I’m not all that concerned about Mary gossiping about anything. I just want to know, what did you tell her?” Abigail asked, hiding her growing smile behind her glass of wine.

“I already said, nothing explicit.”

“God, you’re boring, old man,” John said, relaxing a little, letting his head fall back as he smiled, just a little. “You didn’t want to brag to her about—”

“No.”

Pushing a lock of hair that had fallen from her bun behind her ear, Abigail hid her smile behind her hand and laughed, shaking her head in disbelief.

“As I said, I don’t care if Mary knows. But you know, we are going to have to talk about when we’re going to tell Jack, and what we’ll tell him. And,” And she looked, first at John, and then at Arthur, and something about the glimmer in her eye made Arthur uncomfortable, and he could tell John felt the same way. “You’re going to have to tell Dutch and Hosea at some point.”

_Mother fucker._

A dozen scenarios popped up in Arthur’s imagination of how that conversation might go, and nearly all of them involved some kind of gloating.

“'You?'” John asked, snapping up. “What do you mean, ' _you_ '?”

“Well, it would be strange if that sort of news came from me, rather than their darling boys.”

“Oh, don't give us that. You are more darling to them than the two of us combined.”

Arthur laughed, darkly, from the back of his throat, and reached around the table and gently shoved John in his chair.

“All those years of arguing over who was their favorite, and it’s been Abigail all along.”

“Abigail was their favorite before they even met her,” John answered, popping his one eye open just to wink, before he leaned back in his chair again, lounging with his arms behind his head.

“Oh, stop it.” Abigail insisted, blushing a little, probably because she knew it was true. She and Hosea, especially, had always gotten along well. “So what else did you and Mary talk about?”

Of all of the things she could have asked.

He didn’t want to have this conversation right now, but he’d already talked to Mary. And he’d been thinking about it, so he knew he should tell them. But he’d already talked about this once today—wasn’t that enough?

“I—well. Okay. So. If I were, to, um—”

“Do you need more wine?” Abigail asked, grabbing the bottle and pouring some more into Arthur’s glass before he could say anything. He nodded in thanks and took another sip that didn’t really help.

“Well—I mean, I told Mary, so I realized I should have already talked to you. But, hypothetically, if I were to date someone else, that would be okay with you two, right?”

John sat up in his seat again, and Abigail turned her eyes onto Arthur in a way that she usually reserved for Jack when he got into a little mischief.

“That’s alright with me,” Abigail said, her voice pleasant even as her eyes got narrower.

“Me too.” Leaning over the table, John nodded his head.

Oh, god. They’d been doing this for years, any time Arthur had any sort of fledgling flirtation. Which, admittedly, wasn’t often. Maybe it was because of that rarity that they tended to turn into ravenous hyenas when presented with any scrap of information on Arthur's love life.  

“You gonna give us a name?”

“I mean—nothing has happened. I’ve only met him a few times, but—uh...”

“Name?”

“Charles Smith?” Arthur had no idea why he phrased it like a question. He, apparently, he had been knocked off kilter, turned into a fool by Mary once again—only she wasn’t around to witness the fallout. “He’s a photographer. He’s teaching in town this summer. Like I said, I’ve only met him a few times. And I have no reason to think he has any interest in… anything.”

“Let’s assume that he is," Abigail said, like she knew something Arthur didn't. Arthur didn't know anything. "How fast do you imagine this moving?”

“Slowly.” He answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“And—because you, Arthur Morgan are actually talking about your feelings of your own volition,”

“Yeah, that’s real rich coming from you, John—”

“Hey, I know my faults and shortcomings. But clearly, if you’re talking about it, then you are interested, so if you also want to date famous photographer Charles Smith, then we’ll figure things out once you’re done moving slowly.” John said, and of course, when the words came from his mouth, everything seemed so simple.

Across the table, Abigail nodded.

“Look, unless we suddenly all move in together—”

“I’m still waiting on the house across from Sadie to be put up for sale—”

“We can’t spend all of our time together. Not that I believe we should, even if we could. You’re free to spend your time as you wish, and that includes trying to seduce world-famous photographer.”

“That’s not—alright.”

“You’ll need to get another girlfriend, just to keep things balanced,” Abigail said, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling.

Arthur could hardly take his eyes off of her even as he laughed, and asked, “Oh, yeah? You got any suggestions?”

“Lord, no. We’ll have to take applications and do interviews to see who can handle you.”

“I think I have enough to handle already.”

John stamped his foot onto Arthur’s beneath the table, and Abigail scoffed, rolling her eyes.

Arthur stayed a little while longer, letting the buzz of the wine waste away. They kept talking, about Dutch and Hosea and their upcoming party, about Arthur’s trip to the Aurora Basin and how he was one step closer to finally painting his house.

He said goodnight to the two of them with a quick kiss and a lingering hug each, and then he said goodnight to Jack with a series of elaborate high fives and fist bumps.

When Arthur returned home, he took a nice bath and fed a few treats to Boadicea to apologize for spending nearly the whole day out of the house. He was almost glad to go back to work the next day, drained as he was from his supposed day off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I chose to translate the TB to MS in a modern AU because TB is super easy and inexpensive to cure nowadays, and because, like TB was before we had the antibiotics to cure it, autoimmune diseases affect the rest of a person’s life (with, i’ll admit, the TB being more likely to kill someone back then than MS itself is today, but I have no intentions of killing Arthur in this au anyway) Also, TB was and MS is currently something we can and do treat, but we cannot cure. There will be more MS-related things in the later chapters, but I’m not ever going to pretend that I’m an expert on MS or that my readers need to be experts on it to understand the plot. I am pulling on some of my own experience, having a different autoimmune disorder, and having a close family member with MS, but again, there won’t be anything… super technical.


	11. Sean's Party (Come and Get It)

After his appointment with Dr. Downes and lunch with Mary and dinner with the Marstons, the rest of the week was, in comparison, quiet.

Until Saturday.

On Saturday, Arthur had a party to go to.

Arthur had been there for every one of Dutch’s elaborate parties. He had been there, years ago, when Dutch decided he wanted to have a party with all of his business partners and other close friends. So had made arrangements, hired some caterers to make some food, bought the drinks, and sent the invitations. And then his friends and associates asked why Dutch was having a party in the middle of April. _Just because_ wasn’t a good enough answer for some people–Arthur included–so Dutch decided that that first party was an early celebration of Hosea’s birthday—this, despite the fact a different party closer to his actual birthday had already been planned. The next year, Dutch wanted to have another party and decided that one was in honor of tax day. The third year was an Easter party, and the fourth was in honor of the swimming pool he and Hosea had built in the backyard.

This had been going on for nearly 15 years, and every single year, Dutch held a party for a completely different and arbitrary reason.

This year’s reason, to Arthur’s great chagrin, was _Sean_.

It wasn’t Sean’s birthday. Sean hadn’t done anything special or significant to celebrate. Nothing remarkable had happened to Sean recently. It just happened to be that Sean was the one working at the register when Dutch came into the coffee shop to sit down with his laptop and notebook to plan the party. In Dutch’s mind, Sean seemed like as good of a reason to gather together and celebrate as any.

Having a large and expensive party at Dutch and Hosea’s glamorous house thrown in his honor had gone straight to Sean’s head, just as Arthur feared it would.

Everyone who had anything even slightly important to do in Limpany was invited. Every employee and business partner and old friend, a number of professors from the college, the members of the city council and the leaders of different charities and places of worship in town.

Dutch always was a _the more, the merrier_ sort of person.

Arthur was not.  

Wanting to actually have a chance to talk to his adopted family before they were swarmed by people Arthur had never met in his life, Arthur arrived to the party early, about an hour before the other guests. The caterers were still dropping off the food in the kitchen, and Dutch was rearranging the glasses kept near the pitchers full of a rainbow of sangrias and lemonades and water with different fruits and herbs floating around in it. Abigail and Simon were placing tray after tray of little pastries and cupcakes and macarons on the table in the middle of the great room.

Above it all, Hosea was watching everything come together from the second-floor loft that overlooked the great room and the massive wall of floor-to-ceiling windows opposite. His fluffy grey cat, Silver Dollar, laid at his feet, his tail swishing from side to side as he also watched the hubbub below.

“Arthur. You’re here early.”

“Yeah.” He admitted, nodding his head as he ascended to the top of the staircase. “I wanted to actually see you and Dutch before the mess began. Although, I suppose Dutch is still a little busy.” As he always was. Maybe Arthur could catch him later.

“Oh, if anyone were to have the power to distract Dutch from micromanaging–” Hosea surveyed his kingdom below him, looking to see what Dutch was up to now, “the placement of the trash cans, it would be you.”

“You’re selling yourself short, old man.”

Arthur clapped Hosea on the back, and the other man shrugged him and his needling about his age away with a wry smile and leaned over the banister once more.

“So how has your other job been treating you? It’s been weeks since I’ve seen you anywhere other than behind the counter at the café.”

“It hasn’t even been two full weeks since we last had dinner, you coot. And things have been alright. I had my appointment with Dr. Downes the other day, and everything's fine. And then, just the other day, some Silicon Valley-type millionaire made an offer on my landscape of Barrow’s Lagoon, the one that was in the gallery down in Saint Denis. Did you ever have a chance to see that one?”

Hosea nodded, smiling as he witnessed Dutch adjust the thermostat while fretting about how it was supposed to be an unseasonably warm night for early April, and the dangers of climate change and rising sea levels.

“Of course. I liked that one—it made me feel a little desolate inside, to look at it, but I liked it. But I like all of your work, son.”

Including Arthur’s old paintings, that had nothing more than sentimental value—they certainly didn’t have any monetary or artistic value.

“Eh, that’s only because you don’t have any taste.”

“Maybe not.” And somehow, the little teasing look in Hosea’s eyes got multitudes worse. “Speaking of taste, I’ve been hearing some interesting rumors about your personal life.”

Immediately, Arthur felt ice cold. Good lord, what did he mean by ‘speaking of taste’?

“How interesting?”

Arthur probably shouldn’t have asked. He should have just ignored Hosea and turned around and walked away, gone down the stairs, maybe gotten back in his car and driven home. There was a new documentary on Netflix he’d been meaning to get to, and—

“Oh, as interesting as they always are, when it comes to you,” Hosea answered, still determinedly looking down as Dutch ironed out the final metaphorical details of the party on the floor below. And Arthur felt that he didn’t have much of a chance of getting out of this conversation unscathed, or unembarrassed. “I think you’ll be pleased to know that Charles Smith was invited. Abigail’s here already, as I’m sure you’ve seen. John will be here soon, he had to pick up Jack from, oh, what was it…”

“Piano lessons.”

“Right. Do you have anything you want to say for yourself, or am I supposed to keep my ear pressed up against doors and eavesdrop for any scrap of information about your personal life?” Hosea finally turned to look away from Dutch’s frantic chaos below and gave Arthur such a steely look that he understood why Hosea was considered a bit of a shark in the real estate business.

“I will say,” Arthur said slowly, thinking quickly about how much he actually wanted to tell Hosea. “I will say that Charles Smith is just another artist I’ve been talking to and that John and Abigail and I have, uh…”

“Been occasionally screwing each other for years and have only recently admitted that you’re interested in more than a threesome every couple of months?”

The longer Hosea’s sentence continued, the more Arthur wanted to jump head-first onto the floor below. It wasn’t a long fall, but if he hit the right way, it would break his neck, right?  That would at least get him a trip to Limpany General Hospital, and being in the emergency room was probably the only reason Dutch would let Arthur miss this party.  

“Jesus Christ,” Arthur muttered, collapsing forward and resting his forehead on the top of the banister. Surely it wasn’t normal for people to talk about these things with their father-figures, right? The idea of talking about any of this with Lyle Morgan, if he had still been alive, made his skin crawl. Arthur always assumed that parents ignored all evidence of their children having sex lives up until they produced a grandchild, or, god forbid, were in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed it.

And here Hosea was, willingly introducing the topic.

Arthur jumped when he felt Hosea clap a hand on the back of his shoulder. _God damn that old man._

“Well, as long as you’re all happy with whatever arrangement you have. If it is something more serious, I’ll be glad. I want all of my kids to be happy, especially you. But if it is just casual sex, well, I certainly can’t fault any of you for that, as long as you are all safe and happy—”

This was intolerable.

“Stop talking.” Arthur groaned. And then he took a deep breath and pushed himself up, and saw Hosea’s shit-eating smirk. The bastard was doing this on purpose. “Actually, wait—who told you?”

Arthur was filled with a chilling, heavy sense of dread. Had Sean and Karen remembered seeing him and Abigail? Or, maybe—

“Well, I stopped into the coffee shop one afternoon. I was actually waiting in line behind Mr. Smith, and as Javier fixed me a cup of tea after Mr. Smith had already left, he was kind enough to tell me about how you two met at the riverbank by coincidence and went for a romantic stroll along the water.

“As for you and our darling Marstons, did anyone need to tell me?” Hosea held out his hands like a divine figure, as if such wisdom and understanding should be expected from him. Arthur narrowed his eyes, and Hosea dropped his hands and sighed. “Alright, well, I might have run into John the other day, and he was acting suspicious, so kept needling him about it, and he might have mentioned making some special plans between the two of you to spend some time together. John didn’t tell me anything outright, but since I’ve always had my suspicions, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Or, in this case, two and one together—”

Arthur stood up and threw his head back, and sighed.

Hosea chuckled, and, damnably, continued talking.

“Oh, don’t worry, Arthur. I don’t think Dutch knows, so you don’t have to worry about him teasing you, _yet_. Just like how he still doesn’t know about the adorable crush you developed on him when you were about 13—”

“Am I being punished for something?” Arthur asked, interrupting Hosea before he could say anything more horrifying.

“Of course you are. You don’t have to hide everything from us, you know. It might do you some good to talk about the happy things in your life, to share them with myself and with Dutch and the other people who are important to you, rather than squirreling them away.”

“I—I’ve already told John and Abigail about Charles. I’m being open with them, about—about how, well—”

“I’m certain you have,” Hosea said, clapping Arthur on the back and stepping a little closer. “That wasn’t what I meant. I just think it would do you some good to embrace the good things you have in your life, instead of preparing for them to be taken away at any moment.”

He was talking about Eliza and Isaac, of course. And Mary. And every other one of Arthur’s ill-fated relationships. That was the only kind he had, really.

Arthur nodded, not sure what else he could say.

Deliberately not looking in Hosea’s direction, Arthur looked around the room below him. The caterers had left, Abigail and Pearson had settled on an arrangement for their many baked goods and sweets, and even Dutch had taken a step back to survey his work.

Arthur knelt down and gave Silver Dollar a few scratches under his collar, and stood up to give Hosea a brief, one-armed hug around his shoulders.

There was only a little time to speak with Dutch before the first wave of the guests arrived—they had just about enough time for pleasantries, and that was all. Then Arthur said hello to Simon and shared a friendly handshake with him, and found Abigail where she was taking a moment to gather herself in the kitchen, leaning against the fancy marble countertop that matched the one in the coffee shop.

“Hey, you.”

Abigail perked up and smiled.

“Hey yourself.” And she, very blatantly, looked him up at down. “You look nice.”

Arthur had thought about wearing his dirtiest, paint-stained sweats just to let everyone know how much he didn’t want to be at the party, but he didn’t actually have the gall to follow through. Instead, Arthur had gone for an outfit he’d worn to a number of gallery things. Arthur never felt like anything that went on at Dutch and Hosea’s house ever required a suit, but a bright white button up shirt and navy blue slacks seemed appropriate.

He'd almost worn a tie, but decided against it at the last moment, and left it laying on his bed at home.  

He returned the look as he ambled the few steps towards her. She was wearing a green dress in a shade of jade that suited her very well. It suited her as well as the deep neckline suited her, not that they were at all at the point where Arthur could make such a statement in such a public place, but he still thought it.

“I knew I had to look decent enough to be seen with you. You look perfect.”

“Flatterer.” She chanced a brief peck on the cheek, and then smoothed a few imaginary wrinkles from his shirt. “So I was talking with Hosea earlier, while Simon and I were bringing in the pastries we’d brought. Charles Smith was invited—”

“Not you too.” Then, gathering his courage, he leans in a little closer and mutters, “Speaking of Hosea,” and Arthur watches the horror and discomfort spread across Abigail’s freckled face as he told her about Hosea’s suspicions.

John and Jack arrived minutes later. Jack ran first to his mother, and then to Arthur, for a hug. While Jack was babbling on to Abigail about his upcoming piano recital, Arthur chanced a kiss to the crown of John’s head, a gesture that John returned with a quick squeeze to one of Arthur’s hands.

As wave after wave of guests arrived, Abigail and John excused themselves to talk to people they felt they needed to talk to. Arthur was not necessarily happy to see them go. Abigail left to talk to one of the teachers at Jack’s school, and John to talk to Bill Williamson. Jack, meanwhile, was lucky enough to be found by Josiah Trelawney’s sons, and they all scampered off to the basement to play with the other kids.

Arthur kind of wished he could join them.

Lost with no real anchor in the buzzing party around him, Arthur decided to pick over the sweets Abigail and Simon baked—the profiteroles were the best Arthur had ever had, and the macarons delightful—and grabbed a glass of wine for himself. Dessert consumed and booze in hand, he almost felt ready to be social.

Working his way around the large great room of the house Arthur had once called home, he said hello and gave a few friendly waves to people he was slightly acquainted with. He gave Susan a hug, but she was in the middle of talking to some people from the city council and gave a friendly nod of acknowledgment to Sadie, but he’d already seen and talked to her earlier that day when she stopped by the coffee shop on her way home from her kickboxing class. The Balfours were there, as were two of Arthur’s old professors from MacAlister, but he regularly kept in touch with all of them, so there was no pressing need to stop and talk and interrupt the conversations they were already having.

After a little mingling, Arthur spotted Tilly and Mary-Beth standing together, saying goodbye to a man that Arthur believed worked as an administrator at the college as he went off to talk to someone else.

“You two look lovely.” He said, knowing full well that the dresses and shoes they wore were borrowed from different friends, just for the occasion. He’d heard all about the trouble they’d gone through to to look nice that morning at work (and held his tongue the entire time, never saying what he was thinking, that Dutch’s stupid party wasn’t worth any of their time or money, but they were excited anyway, so he didn’t fight them on it.)

“Why, thank you kindly, sir,” Mary-Beth said with a flourishing little curtsy.

“You clean up pretty well yourself, old man,” Tilly said, her face brightening. She gave Arthur a teasing, friendly elbow to his side. “It’s strange to see you wear something other than flannel, but strange in a nice way, I promise.”

Arthur looked down at his stark white dress shirt, a fleeting self-consciousness making him feel certain that he must have stained it already, but it was free of flaws.

And then Tilly’s words settled in.

“Hey—” His eyes snapped back up to her face, with her shit-eating grin and blush. “I don’t wear that much flannel.”

“Oh, yes you do.” Mary-Beth interrupted. “It’s flannel shirts from October to April, and solid colored t-shirts in various neutral or jewel tones the rest of the year. That’s about 90 percent of what you wear. Have you thought about signing up for one of those styling services where you take a quiz and then they ship clothes to you in the mail and you try them on and pick what you want? You should branch out more, try new things.”

Arthur stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Why do you love trying to spend my money for me?”

She just shrugged and took another sip of her drink.

“I need to have some fun.”

Arthur rolled his eyes and looked to Tilly for some support. She, like Mary-Beth, just smirked, and took a sip from her glass.

Her glass that was unmistakably full of one of the many sangrias offered to guests.

“Hey. You’re not 21 yet.”

“No,” Tilly said, simply, while Mary-Beth started to giggle beside her.  "You think I'm going to turn down some fancy drinks provided for free by my very rich employer?"

“You are at a party with half of the professors at your college, nearly the entire Limpany police force, and the mayor.”

“Yeah. Are you gonna narc on me or something?”

“No.” Arthur sighed, a moment later. He was an adult, right? He should do something about this? Frankly, he didn’t care. “I _am_ a little impressed with your gumption, though.”

“Are you going to tell me you never did some underage drinking in this house?”

Arthur’s answering smile and laugh came easily.

“I won’t say I didn’t, but I’m not sharing any stories.” And then, as his serious-adult expression vanished from his face, he fought back a small smirk. “Actually, I won’t share any stories about me, but...” And then he preceded to tell the story of how a drunken teenaged John Marston shattered one of the giant, floor to ceiling windows that separated the main room of the house from the narrow deck attached to the house, and from the steep river valley and evergreen forest below, a gaffe he, somehow, never got in trouble for. 

And John genuinely thought that he wasn't the favorite.  

Arthur excused himself a little while later, certain that the two of them had had quite enough of his company.

Then, he spoke with Javier a while about their shared suspicions that Dutch was going to promote Javier to being the coffee shop’s third manager, and got another drink.

By that time, the party had reached its peak. The large room, that almost echoed when empty, was packed from wall to wall. And despite the wall of windows and the peaked cathedral ceilings, Arthur felt crammed in—he couldn’t seem to move without hitting someone with his elbow, no matter how small and graceful he tried to be.

It was around that point that Dutch emerged from the crowd, and stood on a chair next to the fireplace at one end of the wall. He was flushed, with a half-full glass of wine in his hand, and Hosea and Molly darted to his side, ready to catch him should he fall.

Dutch was oblivious to his partners’ care, and raised his glass and his voice over the din of the crowd. As the room hushed, Dutch gave a brief speech—as brief as Dutch van der Linde can possibly be—and introduced the man of the hour, Sean, to his guests. Tipsy as he was, Dutch thankfully still had the presence of mind not to let Sean give a speech. Instead, Dutch droned on about the importance of community, about taking the opportunity to get to know ones’ neighbors better, about enjoying the food and drink at hand.

There was a round of polite applause, and then Dutch offered a toast in honor of his guests. Finally, he told everyone to resume what they had been doing and stepped off of the dining room chair with Molly and Hosea’s helping hands.

Arthur stepped off to one side of the room, near the wide, open archway into the kitchen, and watched as the attentive audience broke off into little clumps as people resumed their conversations.

There was one figure among the crowd that did not turn around, away from Dutch, and formed a small, cohesive little group. There were, actually, a handful of people standing alone in the crowd, but there was one that stood out to Arthur.

Not that Arthur was looking for him, or anything. Charles Smith just happened to be a noticeable figure.

Charles was standing almost in the corner of the room, standing right up against the expansive glass wall. He was not the only one—the whole house was built with the view of the valley and the Dakota River in mind, and nowhere in Limpany had a view quite like this. But—and Arthur was almost certainly projecting—he liked to believe that Charles was admiring a view in a way that other people didn’t. That he was admiring the view as an artist.

Making a deliberate decision to walk forward, Arthur approached Charles where he stood in a crisp blue shirt with polka dots and with a bottle of beer from a local brewery in his hand. He turned slightly to the side when Arthur was about seven, maybe eight feet away from him, and did not look surprised to see him there.

They greeted each other, politely. They asked each other how they were doing, and both admitted that while the food and the drinks and the people were fine enough, there was only so much that their introverted natures would let them enjoy this kind of party. Arthur asked about how preparations for Charles’ classes were going, and Charles congratulated Arthur on the recent sale of his painting of Barrow’s Lagoon, something he’d heard through the grapevine of Limpany gossip.

Then there was a bit of a lull—but not an awkward one, or an unpleasant one, at least in Arthur’s opinion—and as the silence between them settled, Charles waved a hand at the window in front of them.

“It’s quite the view of the valley.” He said with a little considerate nod of his head. “And it faces west, too. It’s a shame it was so cloudy today, I’m sure the sunsets are a sight here.”

“They are. I, uh, used to live here. Somedays, in the winter, it’s almost too much, if the sun’s at the wrong angle and the hill doesn’t stand in the way. Then the whole room is nothing but red and orange and light and heat. But it’s my favorite time of day, and with the trees...” Arthur trailed off, at a complete loss for the words to describe the way the oranges and pinks and purples and blues blended across the sky.

But then Charles raised his eyebrows, and Arthur wondered if maybe, he said too much, or hadn’t made any sense at all when he’d spoken.

“You used to live here?”

“Yeah, I, uh. It’s hard to explain.” _Is it actually hard to explain, or do you just not know how to talk when you’re around him?_ “Hosea and Dutch—I know I mentioned being an orphan, but, uh. Hosea, and Dutch kind of adopted me.” Well, clearly talking to him about this wasn’t going to well, so Arthur changed tactics “Actually, I can show you. Uh, follow me.”

Oh, wonderful, Arthur, that doesn’t sound suspicious at all.

Despite Arthur’s worrying, Charles nodded, his face never wavering.

“Alright. Lead the way.”

Arthur turned a little awkwardly and held his head tall and shoulders back as he walked through the crowd, trying not to feel self-conscious when he realized that this was probably the first time that Charles had ever had a view of his ass if the other man cared to look. And even if he didn’t care to look, it’s one of those things he might just notice.

But he walked. He walked through the ever-bustling crowd of jovial and tipsy people, and through a little pocket door behind the kitchen, and down a split-level staircase. As Charles shut the door behind them, Arthur could feel the quiet rattle around in his ears, out of the constant hubbub for the first time in more than an hour.

He stopped just at the bottom of the stairs, in a little hallway that led down to one of the bathrooms, as well as Dutch and Hosea’s separate offices, and the small and dingy guest room they offered to guests they didn’t like much.

On one side of the hall, a collection of around a dozen photographs were hung. One of Hosea and Bessie, in their wedding clothes, looking as happy as they always did. Another of Dutch and Annabelle, standing in front of some sort of flowering tree. One of Arthur, and his parents, Lyle and Beatrice. Another of Dutch, Hosea, and Arthur at Arthur’s high school graduation, and a yet another at his college graduation. There were many, many others.

On the opposite wall was one of Arthur’s earliest paintings, done shortly after he decided he wanted to make a go at being a professional artist. It was very Hudson River Valley School, a painting of Elysium Pool at sunset, a celebration of warm colors on a canvas nearly 3 feet long.

“See?” Arthur said, pointing to a picture of himself as a sullen teenager, sitting next to Hosea on a cherry-red booth in one of the local diners. It had been taken the day the judge approved Hosea’s petition to be granted formal custody. “I, uh. My mother knew Hosea really well, and she knew Dutch’s mother really well too. They were good to her, and kind to her after we moved to Limpany. Then she died when I was real young, but she said that if anything were to ever happen to her or my dad, I should go to live with either the Matthews or Van der Lindes, since she didn’t have any family worth talking to.

“My dad didn’t care. He never left any instructions on what was supposed to happen to me if he died, no will, nothing scribbled on the back of a fast food napkin. And he did—die, I mean. I was an orphan by 13. Dutch’s mother had passed by then, so Hosea took me in since Dutch was a little young to have custody of a teenager. But Dutch decided he would hang around, and be sort of like an older brother. He was an orphan and I was an orphan, so he thought we should stick together.

“About a year after that, Dutch came into his inheritance from his father and grandfather, and he and Hosea became business partners—they’re mostly in real estate, you know, restoring and renovating places while trying to avoid anything too close to gentrification. They were only business partners at first, and friends, and then, even while they each had their own women,” Arthur waved vaguely to the pictures of Bessie and Annabelle, “They, well.”

He looked over at Charles, half-expecting the other man to wave him off like he already pieced together the clues on Dutch and Hosea’s relationship. But Charles didn’t say or do anything but watch, his face open and curious.

“They’re in love,” Arthur said, continuing on. “They’re both pretty open about being polyamorous, if anyone bothers to ask. Hosea has dated other people since Bessie passed, but no one serious. Dutch has dated more than a few women, none as serious as Annabelle or Molly. But they’re happy, and they were, back then, too.”

“And you lived with them?”

“Sure. But not always in this house.” Arthur pointed to another picture on the wall, one of him at around the age of 15 playing with a dog in the yard of a smaller, more modest house, not far from where the Marstons lived now. “For the first couple of years, I lived in the house that Hosea had inherited from his ma, with Hosea and Bessie—Dutch was a constant visitor. And then Dutch and Hosea started doing really well with business, and they decided to build this place and live together. They did that partly because they were business partners and figured owning a house together was just one more arrangement they could make between them, and partly so they could each be close to me, and partly because they just both love being unconventional for the sake of being unconventional—this was even before they got together, romantically. The three of us and Bessie and Annabelle ended up moving into this place about 20 years ago.”

For a moment, he thought about Bessie, warm and kind, and Annabelle, razor sharp and clever, and how both of them died too soon, just like his parents. But that was a real downer of a thought, so he tried to lighten his own mood with an attempt at a joke, and so he said, “God, saying that out loud makes me feel old.”

Charles squinted at him, and then relaxed and turned his attention towards the painting on the wall opposite.

“You’ve had quite the unconventional life. Then again, all of the best artists do.”

Arthur scoffed, “ _f_ _latterer_.”

“Not really.” Charles shuffled to the side and turned his head to the side to look at the painting. His eyes seemed to look at the reflections Arthur had painted on the smooth pool of water (not _well_ , in his opinion) and some of Charles’s dark, thick hair fell to the front of his shoulder. It was very dark, but the way it reflected the warm lighting in the hallway, it—

“Just making an observation,” Charles continued, totally oblivious to the mess happening inside of Arthur’s head, “but this was one of your earlier works, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was.” Arthur sighed. There were many things he could have done better—he really hoped he could get that painting of Molly to them soon. “How obvious is it?”

“Hmm? Oh, it’s good. I like it, I promise. But it’s a completely different style than the others I’ve seen. It feels like you hadn’t made up your mind about what you wanted to do when you made it.”

“I hadn’t.

“No, no, I know what you mean, but it feels like you didn’t have all that much confidence when you painted this.”

“No, that’s still true. I was only 16 or 17 when I made this. It was one of the first times anyone had ever given me a decent canvas and pigments. I was mostly just trying for the sake of trying at that point.”

Charles stood straight and turned to look at Arthur. Arthur was absolutely not distracted by the way Charles’ neck flex as he turned—why, he hardly even noticed the other man moving at all.

“That young? I didn’t know you were a prodigy.” Charles’s dark eyes glimmered as the smallest smile graced his lips. The way his eyes reflected light was different than his hair—better, maybe. His hair diffused the light, separating into different shades of brown and gold and red, while his eyes reflected the light more clearly, originally—

_You are in the middle of a conversation, you hapless idiot._

“Don’t you start with me,” Arthur said, nearly growling, and Charles laughed, once, as clear as a bell, and took a sip of his beer. “It’s a perfectly decent painting that Dutch and Hosea keep because they’re sentimental old men. I’m no prodigy.”

“Do you know how to accept a compliment, Arthur Morgan?”

“I accept them just fine whenever I’m winning awards for my work, or when they’re being accepted into the collections of some the best museums in the world.”

Charles laughed twice, a full belly laugh that had him throwing his head back and squinting his eyes shut. It certainly didn’t make Arthur feel warm in his chest, or slightly aroused. _No,_ _don’t think about that, Arthur…_

“See, I was waiting to see if you turned into a cocky asshole.” Said Charles, his eyes still bright, his face as open and as relaxed as Arthur had ever seen it. It was just the beer Charles had been drinking. “But really… I like what you’ve done.” Charles opened his mouth but snapped it shut again when he heard footsteps on the stairs behind them. Arthur took a step back, away from Charles—not that they had been standing close together in the first place— _really_ , they hadn’t—and turned to see who it was. This really wasn’t a busy part of the house, and it had been closed off to the guests, so it must have been—

It was Molly, slightly flushed in the face and wearing a blue dress Dutch surprised her with for the occasion (although, Arthur didn’t think it was much of a surprise since he bought her something new to wear for even the least significant of occasions.) She looked surprised to see anyone in that hallway, and Arthur imagined that he and Charles looked the same way.

“Hello, Arthur, Charles.” She said, a little breathless.

Charles nodded, while Arthur greeted, “Molly. You look lovely.”

“Thank you, Arthur.”

“You alright? You’re looking a little flushed.”

“Oh, you know. I just needed a moment of quiet. The party’s going really well, but there are just too many people in the same room.”

This time, Arthur nodded, and Charles muttered, “that I can understand.” And then Charles took a deep breath and looked back to Arthur. His face was placid but his eyes were a little weary when he said “There were some other people—people from the college—who I should say hello to. Thanks for showing me your work, Arthur. I’ll see you later, Molly.” And then he stalked off, silently, passed Molly and back to the party.

Molly leaned against the wall as he passed to give him more space, and once Charles was out of sight, she turned to face Arthur again.

“Showing him your work. Is that a euphemism?”

“Jesus,” Arthur rubbed at his forehead, trying to rid himself of the incredible amount of tension he was so suddenly carrying. “Not you too.”

“Your personal life has gone from 0 to 60 real quick, hasn’t it?”

“We’re not—I’ve met the man a half dozen times. Not even that many. There isn’t anything going on.”

“Maybe not,” Molly shrugged, pushing past Arthur and towards the first door on the left, where the bathroom was, before lingering just outside of the door with a growing smirk on her face. “But you have to admit, you’re a sucker for a pretty pair of eyes.”

Eh, that was true. Hadn’t he just been thinking about how Charles’—

“And,” Molly continued, one foot already inside of the bathroom, “for the record, you two had the body language of two people who both wanted to stick their hand down the other’s pants. At least you don’t have to worry about it being unrequited.” And she promptly shut the door behind her.

Was… was she teasing him? Molly was usually pretty blunt about these sorts of things… She was blunt about most things.

_Just... Think about that later, Arthur._

_And for god’s sake, you still haven’t gotten the man’s phone number._

He would need that, at some point. For professional reasons.

With a deep breath, Arthur climbed the small set of stairs, his limbs feeling heavy, and returned to the party.

Having made his rounds of all of the people he was expected to talk to, Arthur spent a little time hovering around the food, picking at what he wanted from what little remained.  As he picked, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Kieran talked to Mary-Beth, and he decided that they were almost definitely flirting.  

His grazing was interrupted by a slightly tipsy John, who pulled him from the party up the stairs to the loft, and then down the little hallway. John pulled Arthur into his old bedroom and gave him a rather remarkable blowjob, temporarily distracting Arthur from everything else.

As Arthur caught his breath, leaning against the wall next to the bookcase that still held some of the college textbooks he’d never gotten rid of, he looked down at John, who was still on his knees, his forehead leaning against Arthur's stomach as he steadied himself.

Surely his knees had to be aching by now?

Arthur brushed a few locks of John’s hair back, behind his ear, traced a thumb along the old scars on his jaw, and then offered him a hand to stand up. John stood on unsteady legs, and held onto Arthur’s hand as they leaned into each other.

Arthur checked as slyly as he could—John wasn’t hard.

“What was that for?” Arthur asked, trying to keep his voice steady and even.

“Can’t I do anything nice for you without suspicion?” John’s hazel eyes flickered open, and his face melted into an easy, teasing grin.

Molly was at least right about one thing. Arthur really was a sucker for a pair of pretty eyes.

He poked John gently on the side of his ribs, grinning as John flinched away. And then, to forgive Arthur for his teasing, John wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled himself closer into Arthur’s side.

“Why did you do it?” Arthur asked, as the buzzing sound of the party below finally leeched into the silence of his old room.

“Well, I know you don’t like these parties,” John said, his voice low. “And because Abigail pulled me in here about half an hour ago and sucked me off on your old bed. I felt like I should, uh—what’s the phrase?— _pay it forward_.”

And that explained why Arthur couldn’t find either of them when he returned to the party after his moment with Charles and Molly.

“Your generosity is astounding.”

This wasn’t the first time John and Arthur had gotten one or the other off, certainly not the first time they’d _hugged,_ or just touched. But they’d never stolen a private moment away—at least, not since they were shithead teenagers who snuck away from parties like this to steal a swig of vodka straight from the bottle, or to share a stolen cigarette. They’d never stolen a private moment away just for each other. They’d never had reason to.

This felt different. Completely different. John and Abigail were right about what they’d said, about unburying whatever romantic feelings used to be there. The pleasant, warm weight at the bottom of Arthur’s stomach, that had been there after his date with Abigail and after his date with John as well, seemed to prove that whatever they thought was possible, could very well be possible. They could be happy, dating in this strange new era they were already in, and they could be happy for years.

John stayed quiet, but pulled Arthur a little closer, keeping one arm around Arthur’s waist, resting his chin on Arthur’s shoulder as they both centered and re-oriented themselves.

As they stood, in the relative quiet, a thought occurred to Arthur. Should he go and find Abigail, and repay the favor, so to speak? Should they try to keep things like time spent together and orgasms balanced at this point of their relationship? Or would doing that just seem like Arthur was doing it out of obligation, even though—

John’s phone pinged.

He pulled back a little, keeping on hand on Arthur’s shoulder as his other slipped his phone from his pants pocket.

“So I, uh, I might have pulled you in here to distract you from the fact Abigail is talking to Charles Smith right now.”

“Motherfucker,” Arthur hissed. It wasn’t that he was well and truly angry with them, or nervous, or concerned. He, honestly, was more ashamed of himself, that he didn’t expect this. And he was just a little disappointed in himself, for falling for their trap.

Although it was a good trap.

“She likes him, a lot. She says she thinks he’s very attractive and well-rounded and she’s glad you’ve found another artist.” John said, reading over the message before risking a look back up at Arthur’s face.

Arthur’s utterly expressionless face.

Arthur lets John sweat for a moment, watching the doubt twist at the corner of John’s eyes. He speaks only when it looks like John is about to do the same.

“You two,” Arthur said, all of the tension dropping from his shoulders, “are fucking exhausting.”

Immediately, John grinned and started typing furiously on his phone.

“I am definitely telling Abigail you said that.” And John’s phone pings just another beat later. “Oh. She thinks you’re flirting.”

“I might be. Who the hell even knows anymore.”


	12. A Good Friday

It was late Monday afternoon when John dropped by the coffee shop, where Arthur and Javier stood guard behind the counter. John had only just left, handing his shift over to Arthur about forty-five minutes before. Rather than ducking behind the counter to serve himself some coffee, he stayed by the front door, his car keys in hand, and waved Arthur over to his side.

“Abigail and I need a favor,” John asked, his voice tired.

“What is it?”

“Well, this Friday is Good Friday—Jack’s school gives the kids the day off of school for the holiday. Well, Abigail was supposed to be able to take the afternoon off to stay with Jack while I’m working here, but they just got a few massive orders in at the bakery, and, well, it’s not the sort of thing the Callender boys can be trusted with yet, and it’s too much for Simon to do himself. So we were wondering…” John waves his hand, but Arthur could figure out where his question was going as soon it started.

“Yeah, sure, I can watch Jack for the afternoon.”

There went his plans to get some painting done, but, eh. He’d have plenty of other times to paint.

John’s shoulders dropped, and he scratched at the old scars on his chin.

“I—thank you. Abigail and I, we’ll owe you. Although, if we’re going to help paint your house, I think you’re gonna owe us five favors for that.”

Arthur rolled his eyes and turned his head over his shoulder as if that would somehow hide the warm grin on his face from John.

“You know, I think we’re past the point where we need to keep track of who owes us favors or how many.”

“You say that now,” John replied, and he turned with a wink and pushed open the front door.  


***  


Unlike other Friday mornings at Van Der Linde’s, the morning of Good Friday was… sleepy. Now, most people still had to go to work as usual, and the college was still holding classes, but something about the day threw off most people’s schedules. Maybe it was the religious significance of the day, but Arthur kind of doubted that. He wasn’t sure how many people were all that observant in Limpany—the closest thing that he himself got to going to church was speaking with Reverend Swanson on a Sunday.

Or, maybe it was just the weather. For nearly the entire day, dark, threatening clouds floated overhead, promising a storm at some point, but mostly just delivering a few short teasing showers of rain that lasted maybe four or five minutes at a time. But it was enough to keep people inside and to keep them on their toes for the short amounts of time they spent outside.

The threatening rain certainly was going to limit what Arthur and Jack could get up to during their afternoon together. There would be no trips to the park or to the playground on that day—at least they could still go get ice cream.

The morning crawled by. The stream of customers was steady, but it was also slow, and most people seemed content with ordering the most simple of drinks—just an iced tea, just an iced coffee, nothing complicated that involved multiple shots of espresso or exactingly steamed milk.

Even Mary-Beth, usually warm and smiling, seemed a little quiet and slow, and she couldn’t put a finger on what had caused her somber mood.

It wasn’t long after the lunch rush—or, as it was more appropriately described on that day, the lunch stream—that John walked through the door, Jack following after him in a slightly-too-large raincoat.

“Alright, Uncle Arthur,” John said with one of his little winks as he slid behind the countertop, while Jack waited dutifully on the other side. “He’s had lunch, he’s mostly potty trained by now—”

“Hey!”

“And he doesn’t even need a complicated car seat anymore, so he’s all yours for the afternoon. And you,” John leaned over the counter to look at Jack, brushing past Mary-Beth as she gathered the notes she’d had stashed back there, “be good, and have fun with Uncle Arthur.”

Jack nodded and turned to look up at Arthur.

“Just a minute, Jack, and we’ll be on our way.”

Arthur said a quick goodbye to Mary-Beth and a hello to Sean and laid a perfectly friendly hand on John’s shoulder as he walked by. Then he ducked into the back room to get his car keys and his own rain jacket and ducked out the door.

There were more than a few raindrops falling from the sky and staining the pavement of the sidewalk, so Arthur and Jack scrambled down the street to get to Arthur’s car in case it was finally time for the deluge.

It wasn’t—after Arthur made sure Jack was buckled in, he pulled out of his parking space and by the time he was on one of Limpany’s main streets, the one that led to his area of town, the rain had stopped again.

Arthur parked in his garage, and Jack ran ahead of him as they walked across the yard to his house, excited to see Boadicea watching him from the ledge of Arthur’s bedroom window.

Arthur unlocked the back door into the kitchen and waved Jack through with a sweep of his arm. By the time Arthur had shut the door safely behind them, he could hear Boadicea little feet padding across the floor, and before Arthur could say or do anything, like offer to hang up Jack’s coat or ask if he wanted something to drink, Jack was kneeling on the floor, petting the top of Boadicea’s head and scratching under her chin at the same time.

Like father, like son.

Arthur shucked off his own jacket and hung it on one of the little hooks, and waited for Boadicea to be finished with Jack’s attention, watching fondly.

But the cat had more tolerance for Jack than she did for any other human she’d ever met, so Arthur just stood back and watched as Boadicea just got more and more insistent on receiving attention from Jack, and smiled when Jack started giggling as Boadicea stood on her back legs and put her paws on Jack’s chest.

Jack had been wanting a pet about as much as his father had been, only, Jack was a little quieter and more subtle about it. He always loved Boadicea, and he used to get along with Copper really well—the two of them used to take naps together. But again, they had only lived in apartments for the entirety of their adult lives, and never felt like they could commit to a pet.

The Marstons were saving up to get a house of their own, but there weren’t many houses in Limpany proper that were for sale, and they didn’t really want to move outside of the town, away from their jobs and from Jack’s school. Arthur already had his perfect house for them picked out—the little Cape Cod that was directly across the street from Sadie’s house and diagonal from his. It had been sitting empty for years but hadn’t gone up for sale. Yet.

Without Boadicea to distract him any longer, Jack darted out of the kitchen, and Arthur, belatedly, realized he should follow. Jack had gone out, into the hall at the center of Arthur’s house, and ducked his head first into the dining room and, just as Arthur caught up to him, he wandered through the dining room into the living room.

Jack had some rather astute comments to make about the swatches of paint Arthur had applied to the stark white walls, about what flowers or plants or cartoon characters they reminded him of. For the most part, he and Arthur preferred the same colors.

“When are you going to paint?”

“Tomorrow. Your parents are coming over to help—and I guess you’ll be coming over too—and Ms. Sadie will be over to help as well.”

Jack turned and looked up from the splotches of green and blue on the living room walls.

“Is that what mom and dad meant when they said they had plans this weekend?

“I guess so. Why?”

“Nothing,” Jack said, before dancing around Arthur’s legs and back into the hall in order to judge the cinnamon-red and the blue-gray swatches on the walls there.

Once Arthur had finished listening to his kindergarten-aged pseudo-nephew’s interior design expertise (Jack preferred the warm shade of red, and Arthur did as well) they returned to the dining room. Arthur got them both a glass of juice and grabbed a few of his sketchbooks and a handful of pencils.

The deluge finally arrived just as they both sat down at the table for Arthur to teach Jack a little bit about drawing. The two of them—and Boadicea as well, who had curled up on one of the chairs to take a nap—looked up, out of the wide window that looked onto the backyard, and shared a look between them that said they were both glad to be inside, rather than outside in the driving rain. Arthur actually had to raise his voice, just a little, to be heard over the rain beating against the window and the roof above them.

The storm continued, all throughout Arthur’s lesson on breaking down the subject of a drawing into smaller, simpler shapes. They started by drawing a dog. Arthur would do something, like draw an oval for the dog’s body or a circle for its head, and Jack would copy him as best as he could.

Jack was a quick learner, and he’d always been interested in Arthur’s work, so he had already learned somethings just by watching Arthur. But when things didn’t go exactly as he imagined them—when he drew the body too wide or too short, or when he just couldn’t seem to get the size of the dog’s eyes right—Jack was easily frustrated. It was a flaw he could have inherited from either parent, unfortunately. But with Arthur’s low and steady words to encourage him and steady him, they ended up with a cute little drawing of a dog that both Arthur and Jack were proud of.

Sitting there, in the quiet house surrounded by the pouring rain, with Jack, a twisting knot formed just behind Arthur’s heart.

Eliza had been a waitress when she wasn’t writing songs or performing. Most days after Isaac was born, she worked in the evening, after Arthur had returned from his studio. But when she was working, or when she was off at some recording studio or meeting with another local musician, Arthur would take Isaac with him to his studio. When he was really young, he would wear Isaac against his chest with that sling he always had a bitch of a time tying. Then, when Isaac got older, he hated feeling so constricted, so he would stay in a little playpen beside Arthur’s easel, or next to his work table. He would giggle and squeal as he grabbed at his toys or his toes, whichever was more interesting to him at the time, and it was the best distraction from his work that Arthur could ever imagine.

He’d thought that he’d be able to teach Isaac about art, one day, and that Eliza would teach him about music.

He’d had a lot of ideas, about how he would spend time with Isaac, the things they would do together, the things he would teach his son.

With a giant, heaving sigh that drew a curious look from Jack, Arthur pushed that aside.

He had Jack to teach, now.

They drew a cat, next, and Arthur spent less time telling Jack what to do, and more time watching as Jack tried to do it by himself. Jack wanted his cat to look like Boadicea, so Arthur showed him how to add long, fluffy hair and a bushy tail to his little sketch.

When it was finished, Jack was happy with his sketch, and his pride shined through his bright eyes. But Arthur also figured that that was a good place to stop for the day, so he shooed Jack off into the living room, to the TV and the old game console that John had bought for Arthur over a decade ago (in order to be able to play the games he wanted to play while at Arthur’s house). Jack found the games that were two, even three times older than he was quaint in a way that just made Arthur feel old.

Arthur cleaned up after themselves in the dining room and refilled their glasses of juice before he followed Jack into the living room a few minutes behind him. Once he was in the living room, he glanced out the window again—the storm had slowed a little, but not much. In the patch of grass between his house and Sadie’s, there was a puddle of standing water that couldn’t soak into the ground fast enough.

_Wonderful._

Ignoring the weather, and hoping that his basement wouldn’t flood, Arthur lounged across the couch and watched as Jack played. This was a little easier for him—it helped his heart feel lighter.

And Jack played and played, and he and Arthur traded stories. Arthur told stories about the times he and John played games together when they were younger (the stories he could tell Jack in good conscious, at least) and Jack told Arthur all about his friends from school.

It was some time later when Arthur finally heard the rain begin to slow. He peaked out the large bay window looking out onto the street, and saw, between the angry gray clouds, a vibrant patch of blue. With a quick confirmation from the weather app on his phone, Arthur decided it was a good enough time as any. Especially since there was still a decent amount of time until dinner so that Jack’s appetite could recover.

And so Arthur asked, “Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to go get ice cream?”

“Yeah!”

Twenty minutes later, after a journey through the persisting drizzle, Arthur and Jack sat across from each other a little round table in the little family-owned ice cream shop that had been a part of Limpany longer than Arthur had been alive.

Jack had ordered a giant banana split—and Arthur realized he might actually get in trouble for letting him eat all of that—and Arthur ordered a much more reasonable ice cream cone with two scoops of ice cream. It was cold outside and it was still dreary and rainy. It was cold inside too, but neither Arthur nor Jack seemed to mind.

Getting out of the house, and the sugar from the ice cream, spurned Jack into the most talkative state he’d been in all day, snapping both him and Arthur out of the funk that had settled on the day. With a smile on his face, and just a little bit of whipped cream, Jack started telling Arthur about all of the names he’d picked out for the dogs and cats he would adopt in the future, and he told Arthur about all of the books he’d read recently, and the afternoon when Hosea had taken him fishing after school.

The ice cream shop was quiet, but they were far from the only people sitting in the shelter from the cold rain, eating cold ice cream. A minute or so before Arthur finished his mint-chip ice cream, and just as Arthur was suspecting that Jack was about to wave his white flag of surrender and leave the rest of his banana split unfinished, two suit-wearing men sat down at the table behind Jack.

Arthur tried not to be too suspicious or give them any funny looks. He’d always gotten a bunch of strange looks when he was a teenager when he would go anywhere with Dutch and Hosea since they were wearing a suit and tie more often than not, no matter the day or occasion. Sometimes, people just wore suits. But there was something strange about the men.  They didn't look familiar, but Limpany wasn't that small of a town that Arthur could possibly know and recognize everybody.  

One of them had a thin, pinched face, and the other had a wide face and a dark, bushy mustache. Neither one of them looked too happy to be eating ice cream, despite the fact that it was very good ice cream.

But Arthur ignored them and focused on Jack as he talked all about how Hosea show him to bait a hook and taught him about how different baits would help catch different fish.

But then Arthur couldn’t really ignore them any longer.

The one, the angry looking one, answered a phone call, and Arthur could hardly hear Jack over the other man’s voice.

“This is Milton,” he said.

Jack stopped talking, and he looked over at Arthur, the brown eyes he’d inherited from his father curious as he eavesdropped along with his Uncle Arthur.

“Ross and I are still in Limpany,” Milton said a moment later, and then he adjusted his grip on his cellphone. “We had some slight car troubles. A flat tire, a local shop is patching that for us. We won’t be back during regular office hours, but we will be back before the office locks up.”

Ross and Milton were familiar names, to Arthur. Then again, they were both pretty generic names, nothing remarkable. They could have been—

“No, no,” Milton spoke again. “We had plenty of time to look at the old train yard. I think we’ll have more information, to make them a better offer. I know van der Linde’s attorney said they weren’t interested in selling—”

Jack dropped his spoon, and his eyes widened. Arthur tried to give him a warning look, and it seemed to work. Rather than bursting out and telling the besuited men that he knew Dutch van der Linde, that that was his Uncle Dutch, Jack raised a finger to his lips in a sign of shushing as he nodded.

“But I think we can convince them selling will be in their best interest.”

Arthur and Jack left a few minutes after the man, Milton, ended up his call.

“What were they talking about, Uncle Arthur?” Jack asked, as they raced back to the car to escape the misting rain.

“Oh, some people want to buy some land off of Uncle Dutch and Uncle Hosea. Uncle Dutch and Uncle Hosea probably aren’t going to sell it, since they’re stubborn old men, but the people trying to buy it don’t know that yet.”

“Oh.”

And that was about as much as a six-year-old needed to know about Dutch's feud with the titan of modern industry he had and would never meet, Leviticus Cornwall.  

When they got back to Arthur’s house, Arthur apologized and told Jack that he had just a few chores to take care of.  Jack asked if he could go ahead and read one of Arthur’s books to pass the time until Arthur was done, and he accepted.

Within the ten, maybe fifteen minutes that Arthur needed to feed the cat, clean out the litterbox, take his meds, and check in to make sure the basement wasn't in the process of taking on water, Jack had nodded off. He was on the couch, his head resting on the arm, and a book filled with pictures of modern American paintings—including two of Arthur’s own—had fallen from his hands and onto the floor.

It hadn’t taken him long at all to fall asleep, but Arthur supposed the continuing rain and his full stomach had something to do with it.

So it had been a quiet afternoon of watching Jack, but not a bad one.

Half of an hour later, Abigail sent a message to Arthur, letting him know that she was on her way over to pick up Jack. Arthur replied by letting her know not to knock at the door or to ring the doorbell when she arrived.

Five minutes after that, Arthur opened his front door and found Abigail, an umbrella in her hand and her coat clutched tightly around her. He welcomed her in immediately.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Abigail dropped her bag and her umbrella on the ground just on the inside of the door. She took one half step into the living room, and she looked at where her son was asleep, curled up on his side on Arthur’s couch.

Turning back to Arthur, she asked: “what the hell did the two of you do?”

“Well, I taught him a little about drawing, and then we played some games, and then we went and got ice cream—”

“And how much did he have?”

Arthur said a quick prayer, that he would be able to lie convincingly, and said, “A reasonable amount.”

Abigail squinted at him, searching his face for whatever tells he seemed to have that said when he was lying. But as she looked deeper and deeper, she cracked, and she smiled.

“Yeah, I’ll just pretend I believe you. We’ll be having a bit of a late dinner tonight anyway since John had to run a few errands after work.” And then she stood a little straighter, and her face relaxed. “So, did you two have a good afternoon?”

“I think so,” Arthur said, mimicking her crooked little smile without ever realizing it. “He’ll have a couple of drawings to show you, and we got to talk.”

“I’m glad.”

“How was work?”

“A circus, as always.” She answered, taking a few little ambling steps closer, towards Arthur. She smelled like her usual rose-scented perfume, and like sweet bread, like the hot cross buns Bessie used to make for Easter. “It’s been a busy week,” she said, taking another step closer.

Arthur took a chance, and reached out through his arms and placed his hands on her hips and pulled her closer.

“I needed the week just to recuperate from that damn party.”

Abigail’s smile grew wider, and she wrapped her arms around Arthur’s neck.

“I couldn’t imagine why.” And then she kissed him, gentle and quick, before she went on. “You know, I think I missed you.”

Something in Arthur’s chest jumped up into his throat, and his smile grew brighter.

“You and John get a few minutes to see each other, most days. We haven’t really talked, not in person, since the party.”

“No,” Arthur admitted. They’d sent each other a few messages, mostly just greetings of good mornings or goodnights, but nothing substantial. “But I am always happy to spend more time with you."

“Really?  What about next week? Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday night?’

“Sure. Either one works well for me.”

“Maybe on Sunday… we could ask Hosea? See if he, or he and Dutch, or he and Dutch and Molly, some combination of them, wanted to spend an evening with Jack?”

“Alright.” Arthur nodded, and leaned back, against the wall of his hallway, pulling Abigail with him, her legs between his. “What do you want to do?”

“What do you want to do?”

That was the opposite of an answer. But rather than being flustered, Arthur already had a few ideas at the ready. He’d been thinking about it.

“The two of you could come over here.” He said, trying to sound casual, like he _hadn’t_ been thinking about it. “I’ll make dinner. We can talk.”

“And after that, we can _not_ talk?” She asked, her voice just a little more than a whisper.

“Oh, I don’t know, I think you can be pretty talkative,” Arthur replied, and Abigail kissed him again, and nipped at his lower lip.

“I’ve never heard you complain about it, before.”

“You were always too busy talking to hear my complaints—”

“Oh, shut up,” Abigail said, hiding her laughter with a rather vicious stab of her finger into the soft part of his stomach just under his ribs. He tried not to flinch, but he did, pulling away from her and stepping back to a safe distance.

Calming down a little, Arthur asked, “so you’ll come?”

“Will I?” She asked, her face serious.

“Alright, now you shut up.”

She took another step closer, and Arthur, wary of any further teasing, nervously accepted on more kiss, and then she sighed.

“Jack and I have to get going. John would never admit it, but he worries when we’re not home when he expects us.”

Arthur understood, in every sense. So he pushed a lock of hair behind Abigail’s ear and led her into the living room, where Jack slept on. She woke her son with a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he oh so slowly opened his bleary eyes. He needed a moment to clear away the sleep and gather his senses, and then he sprang into the dining room and grabbed his pictures of the cat and the dog to show first to his mother, and his father later at home. Then Jack collected his jacket and said his goodbyes first Boadicea, and then to Arthur.

Jack wrapped his arms around Arthur’s waist, and muttered, “thanks Uncle Arthur,” before he pulled back to let his mother hug Arthur.

“Yeah. Thanks again, Arthur.”

“Anytime.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow.”

And, as one final sign of their goodbye, Abigail pressed a quick and totally friendly kiss to Arthur’s cheek.

It wasn’t very late, but because of the day’s constant gloom, the streetlights had already turned on, casting bright lights and shadows that became distorted in the reflections of the puddles on the sidewalks as Abigail and Jack raced to shelter of her car, parked next to the curb.

Arthur waved as they drove away and then decided he would go do a little work in his studio for the rest of the evening. The house was too quiet, without Jack or Abigail there, and he knew he was going to be busy with a completely different kind of painting the next day. He could, and he should get some work done.

It had been a good day. A good Friday, as well as being Good Friday. And maybe, after everything, the gloomy weather and the time spent with Jack, Arthur felt a little melancholy, but that wasn’t always a bad thing.


	13. An American Domestic Scene

Thanks to the holiday the following day, the coffee shop was just as dead on Saturday as it was on Friday, and Simon and Abigail’s bakery was, apparently, much the same. Most people had taken care of their errands the day before. Only a few people were out and about, students and doctors and nurses, their days unaffected the by the holiday. At a certain point, somewhere around the middle of the afternoon, the coffee shop and the bakery both closed their doors a little early and sent their employees home.

So it was shortly before dinner time when Arthur and the Marstons started painting the walls of his house. It only took eight or nine months to get there, but Arthur was finally doing it.

The windows were cracked open for fresh air, all of the woodwork was taped off, the furniture was pushed to the middle of the room, and they were all wearing clothes they could stand to sacrifice to the cause of interior design. John had started on the dining room, painting the walls a rich golden yellow, while Abigail and Arthur were in the living room, painting the walls emerald green. Even Jack was helping by painting in the corners of the dining room with a little paintbrush, where his father’s roller couldn’t reach.

They had had some music playing in the background, from a little speaker hooked up to Arthur’s phone. But when none of them could agree on what they should listen to, Abigail, in a moment of motherly discipline, shut the speaker off and insisted that they would just have to talk to pass the time.

Arthur could tell that Abigail had started to regret that decision by the time they’d finished one long wall of the living room.

Now, their conversations started out pleasantly enough. Jack brought his father up to speed with how he and Arthur passed their time the day before, and Arthur and John reminisced over their time spent renovating the bathroom, their very first project inside of the house.

But then the conversation turned.

It started once John had finished with one and a half of the walls in the dining room. He stepped back to examine his work, and his sigh was audible from the next room.

“What is it? Did you spill some paint?”

“No, no.” John insisted, but his voice was still tense. “It’s just—this yellow is really yellow.”

“And?” Arthur asked. A few feet away from him, further down the wall, he could hear Abigail sigh.

“I’m just saying, when the room is going to be completely painted, it’s going to be a lot of color for a small room.”

And although John could not see him, Arthur rolled his eyes. He wasn’t angry at John’s reluctance about the color, but really, didn’t he know how much thought Arthur put into this?

“It’s a turn of the century craftsman style house, Marston. It’s meant to be painted with rich, saturated color.” Arthur replies, and that should have been enough of an answer.

“I’m just worried—”

“One of us is a professional artist, and it’s not you.” He insisted, his voice louder.

“Oh dear god.” Arthur heard Abigail mutter. He chose to ignore it.

“Are you at least going to hang things up on the walls? Something to break up all the color?”

“No, I don’t believe in hanging things on walls,” Arthur said, turning his head to wink at Abigail, who was far from amused, even as Arthur tried to hold back his own self-satisfied laughter.

From the other side of the wall, Arthur heard John’s beleaguered sigh.

“You’re a real obnoxious piece of shit, Morgan.”

“ _John_ ,” Abigail snapped, and John sighed again.

“Jack, tell your mother you know you’re not supposed to call people a piece of shit.”

“Mom, I know I’m not supposed to call people— _that_.”

“I’m glad.” She replied, her tone flat. “At least one of my boys knows how to behave.”

Arthur smiled and turned to look at Abigail again as he painted over a tiny little spot he’d missed before.

“Your boys, huh?”

“You don’t need to escalate things, Arthur Morgan.” She insisted.

“Escalate?” Arthur asked, playing dumb to the fact that he knew exactly what he was doing, bothering John. He’d known John for nearly 20 years, he was an expert in bothering John.

And then, a beat behind, John asks, “escalate? If Arthur’s escalating, that implies that I instigated.”

“You did, insulting your—my color choices.”

Arthur was about to say _your best friend_ , but stumbled, in the moment. The words weren’t wrong, but they weren’t entirely accurate either. And Arthur wasn’t going to be the one to let things slip in front of Jack before his parents had decided it was time to tell him.

And before any of them could say anything else, the sound of the front door unlocking and opening stopped them all in their tracks.

“Arthur? Marstons? I have pizza.”

It was Sadie.

“Bless you and your timing, Sadie Adler,” Abigail replied, abandoning her paintbrush without a second thought as Sadie stepped into the living room, her arms loaded with boxes of pizza, and admired what work they had accomplished. “Someone was about to get slapped in the face with a wet paintbrush.”

“Who?”

“I hadn’t decided yet.”

They hadn’t been working for long, but as soon as Sadie arrived with dinner, the other four abandoned their work in the blink of an eye. They left their paint and their brushes behind, and followed her into the little kitchen at the back of the house, and overloaded their plates with pizza.

They ate in the living room. Despite the smell of fresh paint and the haphazard way all of the furniture had been pushed together in the middle of the floor, it was still more comfortable than trying to fit all of them in the disaster zone of the dining room.

Things were light and pleasant, as they chatted. Sadie and the Marstons had always gotten along well, since the first time they’d met—possibly because they all enjoyed having a laugh at Arthur’s expense so much. But something felt _off_ , and Arthur suspected that it was just his imagination. He decided he wasn’t imagining it halfway through dinner.

Arthur hadn’t realized, before. They’d seen each other at Dutch’s party, and Sadie fairly regularly dropped by the coffee shop and the bakery since she’d become acquainted with half of the people who worked there. But this was the first time that Sadie and John and Abigail had really spent together, since.

Since things got interesting.

Sadie didn’t _say_ anything, presumably for Jack’s sake, as they shared slice after slice of pizza. But her glimmering eyes and her occasional shit eating grin whenever she would witness Arthur and John’s shoulders or knees would brush against each other as they sat side by side on the couch, or when Abigail returned from the kitchen with fresh drinks for everyone and combed her fingers through the golden hairs at the nape of Arthur’s neck as she walked past—they said plenty.

Of course, Arthur was fairly certain that he and John had sat beside each other on a crowded couch before, that Abigail had touched him in friendly and platonic ways before, hadn’t they?

Arthur and John were the ones who volunteered to clean up after everyone else was finished with dinner. In the privacy of the kitchen, John, in his most quiet voice (which, admittedly, wasn’t that quiet) asked “Does Sadie… know?”

Arthur froze, his hands on the door to the cabinet where the garbage can was hidden.

“Didn’t I mention that?”

“No. You mentioned Mary, but not Sadie. And Abigail told me about Hosea guessing—I can’t say I’m surprised about that. And I’m not upset about Sadie, it’s just. She winked at me. It was weird.”

“Yeah,” Arthur said, weakly, finally throwing the trash away. “That would be weird.”

Arthur exhaled, his chest decompressing, and he turned a little, trying to move around John to return back to work.

“Wait,” John said and stopped Arthur with a hand on his shoulder. He kissed Arthur, quickly, and pulls back. “Now you can go.”

Arthur left the kitchen, pretending like he didn’t know that his cheeks were flushed.

They return to work, with Sadie painting the hallway the warm, dark shade of red that both Arthur and Jack had liked. While they worked, they kept talking, passing time until they finished, their voices raised to be heard between one room and the other. Jack, at some point, stopped painting and turned his attention to distracting Boadicea, who kept trying to rub up against the wet paint on the wall.

The work went infinitely faster than if Arthur had done it all by himself, and everyone stayed in good spirits. Abigail and Sadie got along well—too well—and led some goodnatured teasing at John and Arthur’s expense that the two of them and Jack appreciated. And then, at some point, John took a step back to admire his work and announced that he’d actually started to like the golden yellow walls in the dining room.

And then, when things were finally done, they collapsed into the sofas and chairs in the living room, admiring the accomplishments of the day.

“It looks nice,” John made the mistake of saying, to which Arthur replied, “yeah. I told you so.”

They poke and pinch each other, but don’t really have the energy to continue on their spat.

Arthur thanked everyone for their help, profusely and repeatedly. He thanks them all, and lets them all know they can leave whenever, that he can take care of the clean up on his own. Still, neither Sadie nor the Marstons left just yet, all too reluctant to move from their comfortable seats.

It’s not all that late, but it is dark by the time they all gather themselves and realize that, once again, Jack had fallen asleep on Arthur’s couch.

“Two days in a row,” Abigail said, watching her son, smiling sweetly as Jack drooled a little bit on one of Arthur’s throw pillows.

That, for whatever reason, was motivation for Sadie to stand and stretch her arms high above her head.

“Well, I should go. Bob will be missing me.”

“Will we see you tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Sadie answered, shrugging only one shoulder. “I haven’t made up my mind yet. It's not that I don't feel welcome at Dutch and Hosea and Molly's place.  I just know it's going to be a lot of people.  But regardless, I’m sure I’ll see all of you soon enough. Goodnight.” She gave them all a little smile, and then she slipped out of the front door.

There is a comfortable silence once she’s gone until Abigail’s head perked up just a little.

“My turn,” she said. And suddenly, Abigail stood from her chair and crossed the single step between her and Arthur, and she dropped into his lap. Before Arthur could really even register what she’d done, she kissed him and pulled back just as quick. “We should head out too.” She murmured, brushing a lock of hair from Arthur’s forehead.

“Alright.”

And Arthur kissed her, quickly, and brushed a hand across her thigh to appreciate her warmth and softness before she was gone again.

She gave him a sad smile, and stood, her head swinging towards her husband.

“You two say goodbye. I’m going to head to the bathroom, and then we’ll wake Jack up.”

Neither Arthur nor John moved after she left, not until Arthur turned his head to look at John, whose head was held in one hand, his elbow balanced on his knee, leaning forward in his seat. John’s eyes opened a little wider when he saw Arthur looking, curious.

“Thanks again, for your help. And thanks for admitting I was right about the colors.”

They eventually get up from their seats and shuffle a little closer together. And then Arthur closes the gap, pulling John closer by hooking a finger through the other man’s belt loop, and he kisses him, gently. Because Arthur was starting to realize that he could, that he was allowed to kiss them as much as they could kiss him.

That little realization made him feel surprisingly giddy.

Abigail returned, and hugged Arthur, tucking her head against his chest and pressing herself against him. And then she pulls away.

They wake Jack up, and Arthur says his goodbyes to the sleepy-eyed boy.

The Marstons slowly leave, and once they are gone, the house is silent.

Arthur slept deeply that night, without any interruption.

In the morning, he lazed around in bed for a little while, longer than usual, as he delighted in the rare day off from work. Of course, Arthur did have the passing thought that he _could_ spend a little time that morning in his studio, but that thought was quickly abandoned.

Instead, he scrolled through his email, spent a little time petting Boadicea, and finally, gave in and got ready for the day.

It was mid-morning by the time he arrived at Dutch and Hosea and Molly’s house.

Hosea always insisted on having people over for Easter lunch. It was a tradition Bessie had started, back when she and Hosea and Arthur were the ones living in the small house on the southern end of town, when Dutch was just a frequent houseguest and when John was the annoying Marston kid who always came over to avoid spending more time with his father. She and Hosea had always gone a little overboard, making tons of food, enough to feed whoever happened to drop by and enough to send some leftovers home with them. Ever since then, Hosea had invited his friends and family around for Easter every year, with the exception of the Easter just after Bessie was diagnosed with cancer.

Since the coffee shop and most other businesses were closed, the whole gang dropped by Dutch and Hosea and Molly’s house for lunch, and some stayed long enough to eat dinner there as well.

Arthur was one of them. His plan was to do as he always did—eat lunch, stretch across his favorite couch or, if the weather was good, claim the hammock beside the pool, and nap until dinner.

And it looked like Arthur was almost going to be able to get away with it, without complaints. Hosea always liked to nag him, about the two of them spending more time together, about Arthur being more social with their friends and colleagues. But Arthur started his day off by getting into Hosea’s good graces by showing up early to help put the finishing touches on their lunch.

Hosea was the only one at home. Molly went to church on Easter Sunday, so that she could tell her mother back home in Dublin that she went and not have to lie about it, and Dutch, ever the devoted boyfriend, actually went with her. Not that Dutch would have been much help to Hosea anyway since Dutch was only slightly less prone to setting things on fire with a stove than Abigail, but Molly was decent enough in the kitchen to help with feeding the troops. But she wasn’t there, and while Hosea would never ask for help, Arthur knew he would appreciate some all the same.

And he did. The minute Arthur showed up, Hosea delegated a list of tasks for him to manage. From setting the table to washing off the extra glasses that hadn’t been used since they had people over for Christmas and maybe they were a little dusty, to running this way and that to retrieve something from the refrigerator and something else from the spice cupboard. Hosea kept Arthur on his toes.

Somehow, they found a little time to talk, between Hosea barking out orders and Arthur reminding the old man that it had been years since he last lived in that house and he didn’t just know where in the fridge they kept the sprigs of fresh rosemary anymore. They talked about work, the possibility of having any time off during the summer, and Arthur’s recently painted house.

“What, are you all planning on moving in together?” Hosea teased, looking at Arthur over his shoulder as he stirred something in a pot on the stove. “I’d say your house is a little small for all four of you. But then again, you basically live in your studio when you aren’t at the coffee shop, so maybe that would suit you all just fine.”

“Yeah, well, maybe when you and Dutch and Molly all retire and move to whatever tropical island Dutch finally settles on, maybe we’ll move into this place. That’ll fit us.”

Hosea is quiet for a moment, and aside from the sound of something bubbling away on the stove, the kitchen is silent.

“You think you’ll be together by then?”

“What?” Arthur asks, despite knowing exactly what Hosea means. But the question threw him entirely off guard.

“Do you think the three of you will still be together in ten, fifteen, twenty years?”

And as always, Arthur cannot lie to Hosea. It’s something about the way that Hosea narrows his steely blue eyes and the way his brow furrows.

“I wouldn’t have said yes to them, when they asked about, about changing things, if I didn’t think it was possible. But. After Annabelle and Bessie and Eliza, sometimes, I can hardly imagine it happening. But I think it’s possible.”

“Good.” Is all Hosea says, before he takes another beat and begins to finally arrange the Easter ham on a platter large enough for them all. And then Arthur can see it, the change in Hosea’s shoulders as he thinks he’s about to be funny. “So, are you going to tell Dutch about the three of you before we pack up and move halfway across the world?”

“Oh, shut up old man.”

The timer on the oven dinged, and Arthur is glad to be able to look away, to be able to take the little bread rolls from the oven and ignore the shaking of Hosea’s shoulder as he laughs.

“It’s just, I’ve known Dutch for decades, and I’ve known him _well_ for nearly that long. I just can’t decide how he’s going to react. Is he going to laugh? Is he going to think it’s all part of some elaborate joke? Is he going to be proud, like he was the one who inspired you to look deep within yourself and give polyamory a chance? I just can’t make up my mind.”

“Yeah, just for that, I’m definitely not telling him while you’re around.”

John and Jack and Abigail show up soon after, their arms laden with a few pies and other sweets Abigail insisted on bringing in order to lighten Hosea’s responsibilities. Hosea is much nicer to them than he is to Arthur, greeting them all with a quick hug before returning to the stove to finish the numerous vegetables he’s cooked for the occasion.

Once Jack slipped off to find The Count napping in the sunlight somewhere, Abigail asks Hosea if he would be able to watch Jack for the night soon. Hosea clarified, asking, “for a night, or overnight?” in such a suggestive way that even Abigail rolled her eyes at him. But with a little prodding, they all pick a night for the week after next that works well for all of them.

“But just remember,” Hosea says, just as they all hear the door from the garage open up, signaling Dutch and Molly’s return. “Even if you claim we’re watching Jack because it's your date night,” he looks at John and Abigail, who were leaning against the kitchen island, “Dutch is going to want to know why we’re the ones watching Jack, instead of his Uncle Arthur.”

“I will tell Dutch when it’s damn well—”

“Dutch, darling, calm down.”

They all freeze in place and listened to Dutch’s heavy footsteps approaching the kitchen.

Before any one of them can really react, Dutch appears, standing in the archway between the kitchen and great room. He’s holding a large envelope and a thick stack of papers, and he looks utterly defeated and exhausted, like he wanted nothing more than to be asleep and in bed, despite the fact that it was just barely noon.

Behind him, over one shoulder is Molly, who looks upset, but nearly as much so as Dutch. And then, over the other shoulder, appears Leopold Strauss, Dutch and Hosea’s accountant, and the man who worked in the building between the coffee shop and the bakery.

“Hosea,” he says, with a heaving sigh. He looked a little like The Count when The Count realized he wasn’t going to be given any table scraps. “It’s here. Leviticus Cornwall’s long-awaited offer to buy that land from us. He and his goonies sent it to Strauss, for whatever reason, instead of Josiah or to us directly.”

Hosea looks at Dutch, silent and his face clear, before he finally sighs himself, while the others, Molly and Strauss and Abigail and John and Arthur, all look back and forth, waiting to see who does what.

And then the doorbell rings. And then it rings again.

“Go let our guests in, Dutch. We’ll talk about this later.”

They didn’t talk about it all that much later.

It seems like all of the other guests arrive at once. Sean and Karen, Bill, Javier and his mother Ines, Mary-Beth and Tilly, Kieran, Uncle and Simon and Susan, the Callendar brothers, Josiah and his wife and sons Cornelius and Tarquin. Even Sadie shows up, right on time, even though she wasn’t certain she was coming at all.

Arthur is busy helping Hosea take plate after plate, bowl after bowl of food to the long dining table set up in front of the giant windows. So he doesn’t know who says something, but all of the sudden, every one of the other guests knows that the greedy, capitalistic figure that Dutch hated more than any other, Leviticus Cornwall, had made an offer to buy the old Flatneck Station from them.

By the time they’ve all received the invitation to sit down and start eating, everyone is offering their own suggestions for what they could do.

Some are more helpful than others.

“Some sort of conservation easement?” Sadie suggests, from her seat next to Arthur.

But Josiah, from the middle of the table, shakes his head.

“We’ve already looked into it. There’s no basis for it, there’s nothing on that land that’s worth conserving.”

“Three ecology professors from MacAlister confirmed it,” Dutch added, from his place at one head of the table.

“What if you just ignore them? Let him waste all of his paper and his people’s time?” That was Bill’s suggestion, but Hosea just shook his head.

“Then he’ll send his lackeys to come and nag us about it in person. I’ve done a fair amount of research on his peoples’ business practices. They’re ruthless.”

“What if you try to out-price them?” Someone, Arthur’s not even sure who, asked.

“It’s Cornwall, about ten people in the world could out-price them,” Strauss said, looking grim as he picked at his food. “And they’re already offering around ten times what the land is worth.”

“What are they even going to do with it? Put in another Cornwall store?” Sean asked.

“We don’t know. Their intentions aren’t in their offer. They could just be putting in a store, but it could be a warehouse, or it could be one of their interplanetary research centers, where they figure out how all of the billionaires are going to colonize Mars once they've destroyed the Earth for the rest of us."  

And it went on, and on, and on, and on.

Someone would offer a suggestion about what they could do, and someone else would come along and shoot that idea down. By the time that Arthur and most people were done eating, the best plan that they seemed to have was to send a politely worded letter asking Cornwall to please give up and go away. And politely worded letters were very much within Hosea’s purview, but not Dutch’s—Dutch wouldn’t think that the matter was settled until Cornwall could not physically or legally do anything to that land.

And so, even as people turned from their Easter ham and potatoes and vegetables to the pies and little tarts Abigail made, the suggestions continued, ad nauseum.

Even as the conversation diverted away from Cornwall, to plans for the summer and what chocolates and candies the kids had gotten from the Easter Bunny that morning, someone would come along pipe up with yet another suggestion.

Something about it, the chaos and the yelling and the back-and-forth nature of the arguments, makes Arthur think about a wild west shootout, with outlaws and lawmen and ricocheting bullets.

Arthur volunteers to start carrying dirty plates and silverware into the kitchen. He filled up the dishwasher with about half of the dishes and cups and left the rest to wait in the sink.

So it is with a completely clear conscience, knowing that he’s already done enough to be helpful—and that he was actually helpful in the first place, unlike many of the guests—Arthur slipped out of the house and away from the guests, and dozed in the warm spring air in the hammock next to the pool.

Leviticus Cornwall could wait.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... So we've finally covered up to chapter 2 in the game. Absolutely none of the other in-game chapters will be as long as this. but. holy cow. 
> 
> This is gonna be a long fic. I have good chunks of it written, but we're gonna be here a while, folks. 
> 
> Also, if you were wondering what Arthur's house looks like check it out [here](https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/20/1024x1455/gallery-1463386362-2603353756-6d73c0f043-o.jpg?resize=*:1830). At some point, I forgot what the outline was like, and just kind of decided that the dining room and living room were separated by an archway and that the fireplace was closer to the front of the house, but that's basically what it looks like. The back bedroom is Arthur's, and the front is a guest room/office. And this house is fucking adorable, just like Arthur.
> 
> Slight edit 04-08-19: realized one of my favorite sentences somehow got cut off when posting, whoops


	14. Finals Week

Though he’d graduated from college around 14 years ago, the very end of the semester and finals week was still a harrowing time in Arthur Morgan’s life. Everyone in their small college town felt the effects, but few felt them quite like the employees of Van Der Linde’s Coffee and Tea. Partially because a few college students worked there, and partially because anywhere from half to one-third of the people sitting in the coffee shop at any given moment were students from MacAlister.

All of them—except for Mary-Beth and Tilly—worked more or longer shifts, just to make things run a little smoother. Arthur didn’t mind so much, moving his two days off from the week to the weekend, when things would finally calm down. Honestly, he would have felt a little guilty not being there at the coffee shop to help out if he had stayed at home, knowing that things were falling to pieces and he wasn’t there to try and do something.

At the end of the semester, the lines got longer, the coffees ordered got larger, and the supply of pastries and sweets from Abigail and Simon’s bakery sold faster. The professors who stopped by for a coffee of their own, looking for a place to grade papers and exams, were also looking tired and worn, although they carried it with a little more grace and more practice than the students. Even people who worked in different administrative offices from the school whose jobs were not affected in any way by the exams dragged themselves into the shop and ordered an outrageous amount of caffeine.

Charles Smith stopped by on Monday afternoon, the day after Easter. Even though he wasn’t technically teaching any students yet, something about the end of the semester was getting to him, too. He was far from rude, and he was as kind and collected as always, his voice as low and as steady as expected, but something in his eyes wasn’t right.

“Are you feeling alright?” Arthur asked, trying to keep his tone light and casual. He almost regretted asking, because that’s the sort of thing you ask people and then they get really self-conscious if everything actually is alright because they start to worry about what about their face makes things look like they’re not okay, but Charles was not worried by Arthur’s question.

“I’m fine. I’m just running a little ragged. I have a lot of meetings and a lot of people to talk to, and I’m not really used to it yet. What about you—I can’t imagine this is an easy time of year for you?”

Arthur shook his head and slid Charles’ large americano across the counter to his eager hands. His lovely, well-sculpted hands.

“Oh, I’ll be fine. We’re well stocked and the hatches have been battened, so to speak.”

Charles nodded, wished him a quiet ‘ _good luck_ ,’ and left.

As a group of two more college students dashed into the door behind him, Arthur remembered, once again, that he’d forgotten to ask Charles for his phone number.

Dammit.

Now, Arthur realized that, as an employee of MacAlister, Charles would have a MacAlister email address that he could probably find online, or get from Molly if he asked nicely enough. But that seemed a little impersonal, even if he only wanted Charles’ contact information for perfectly professional reasons.  And maybe it would come off as a little creepy, although, again, Arthur only wanted his contact info for completely professional reasons.  

And then an even larger crowd of students walked through the front door, and Arthur didn’t have time to think about anything aside from pulling shots of espresso and frothing some milk.

Within all of this chaos, Arthur stood strong. He had gone to MacAlister, he knew what it was like there, what kind of exams and papers the professors expected from their students to complete at the end of the year.

So he was sympathetic.

But Arthur wasn’t exactly the sort of person he imagined people would go to, for empathy and counseling, or for a good old-fashioned pep talk. As far as he was concerned, he was shit at all of that. Seeing students break down, or having anyone come and ask him for advice just made him nervous. What was he supposed to say? What if he said the wrong thing?

But somehow...

Somehow, every finals week, Arthur witnessed a number of students have a breakdown, and for whatever reason, he was the one to build them back up again.

The first one he witnessed was Tilly.

Tilly was having a breakdown that wasn’t a breakdown. She had only gotten sharper and more focused, and just a little angrier under the stress, all in a way that Arthur was certain was not healthy. She was refusing to admit to any weakness or anxiety about her upcoming exams or that she felt any stress at all. During the quiet moments behind the counter when she could study from the notebooks she kept behind the pastry display, she would periodically mutter to herself, “C’s get degrees.”

Despite her refusal to admit she wasn’t handling the stress well, she had hidden her hair under a nice silk scarf, rather than sporting her usual twisted crown. Tilly herself had once told Arthur that she only wore her hair under a scarf when she neglected her haircare routine and that she only neglected her haircare routine when her life had well and truly gone to shit.

And then, there was a moment on Tuesday afternoon when one of Tilly’s sorority sisters was waiting on her order at the end of the counter, and she asked Tilly about how she was feeling about their upcoming biochem final. Tilly told her friend with a bright smile and some finger gun hand motion that she was feeling confident, but she had already crushed the empty compostable-plastic to-go-cup that was in her hand without even realizing it.

But on the flip side, she did seem well and truly ready for her art history exam, thanks to the impromptu quizzes and lectures she had been asking Arthur to give for weeks.

Tilly was strong and independent. Arthur didn’t think it would help any if he tried to counsel her through her stress, so instead, as the two of them closed up on that Tuesday afternoon, he pulled two of the remaining chocolate cookies from the pastry display—one for him and one for Tilly. She took it without a word and ate it, and her shoulders finally relaxed for the first time all afternoon.

On Wednesday, the final day of classes, Lenny came into the coffee shop. Despite not liking coffee, he ordered the largest size of iced coffee they sold, with an extra shot of espresso and three different flavors of syrup, to go.

Arthur was the one who took his order, as Sean and Javier bustled around behind him, preparing the other customer’s orders. From one side of the counter to the other, Arthur stared, dead-eyed, at Lenny.

“I’ll make this for you, but I won’t be happy about it. Are you okay?”

“No.” Lenny said, his voice cheerful and that bright smile of his stretching across his face.

Arthur glanced at his watch and grabbed a cup for Lenny’s coffee. It was late afternoon, and things were finally slowing down enough that Sean and Javier could handle the rest of the customers for a while without Arthur. He caught Javier’s eye and gave him a look, and Javier nodded. He poured the iced coffee, added the extra shot of chilled espresso they kept on hand just at this time of the year, and fit as much sugary syrup in the cup as he could.

Lenny was waiting at the one end of the counter and reached his hand out to accept the cup, but Arthur shook his head and pulled the coffee out of Lenny’s reach. With his other hand, Arthur pointed at the first open table he saw, and said, “sit.”

They sat.

“What’s the problem?” Arthur asked.

“Everything,” Lenny replied, taking a sip of his iced coffee and grimacing. “I mean, this is my second finals week at MacAlister, I should know what to expect. But I have two projects due by Friday, two exams this weekend—seriously, do all colleges schedule finals on weekends or just MacAlister?—and four papers to turn in. And most of it, I’m not too worried about, since I took a lot of gen ed requirements this semester, and I’m doing well in most of my art classes.

“But I took a sculpture class this semester—was that a requirement when you were in school?” Lenny barely waited for Arthur’s nod before we went on, his face turning a little sour. “I haven’t done anything with sculpture since, I don’t know, elementary school art class? I made a lumpy looking turtle out of clay, or something—my grandpa used it as a paperweight.

“And this class has been kicking my ass all semester. I’ve been doing okay, I’m not failing or anything, but with my final project, I have the chance of pulling my grade up a little. But that’s only if I do really well, so I’ve been putting a lot of work into this thing because I want to at least say that I tried and because I don’t want my GPA to suffer.

“So for two nights in a row, I’ve stayed so late in the studio working on this sculpture project that I’ve ended up getting locked in the building at night. The first night, I took it as a sign that I should just keep working, but the second night, I was just too tired. There weren’t any couches or anything, so I just took a few regular chairs and pushed them together to lay down on.”

“Yeah,” Arthur admitted with a dark, stifled laugh. “I did the same thing a time or two,” and Lenny looked a little relieved to hear it, and then he continued on.

“It’s just—I’m not even certain I’m going to do well on this project. I’m upset about the futility of depriving myself of sleep and spending all of my time on this one thing, just for it to get a mediocre grade. And it’s taking time away from all of the other things I need to do and study for, and I can’t be certain it’s going to pay off. I hardly have time to sleep, I’ve been setting a timer before I get into the shower so I don’t waste all of my time, and I just cannot wait to be done with any of this.

“Look, I know the whole ‘an artist has to suffer for their work’ idea is bullshit, but I’m not suffering for my work, right. I’m just suffering.” And then Lenny took another long sip of his coffee, and almost didn’t flinch at the taste.

Arthur hummed a little to himself.

“Unfortunately, I think half of college is suffering—not for the sake of suffering, but to fix bad habits, and figure out what kind of work you’re capable of, and find out just how capable you are. One of the things I learned at your age, and after—actually, no, I’m still learning—is that you can’t always wait for inspiration. You can’t wait and start something when you’re in the right mood and the right thought comes to you—you have to start when you need to start.

“And right now, learning not to be afraid of failure is as important to you as learning about modeling and plaster and metalwork. Failing, especially in our line of work, can be scary, so you have to work it out of your system while you can. There have been entire four or five month long periods of my life where every canvas I touched when right into the garbage—I’m not happy or proud of any of that work I did, I can hardly even remember any of it, but I got over it.”

Lenny’s dark, clever eyes widened, like he wasn’t expecting Arthur to be so candid. To be fair, Arthur didn’t expect Arthur to be so candid.

“How do you… How do you work your way out of it, to get to a better place?” Lenny asked.

“I’m not really sure what to tell you.” Arthur admitted. “I didn’t have much choice.”

And then he sighed, and he glanced out of the corners of his eyes, certain that the entire coffee shop was watching him and listening to him.

Because there was really no way to get his point across to Lenny without talking about things he didn’t want to talk about and didn’t like talking about. He hardly liked thinking about them… But Lenny was a good kid.

And, really, Arthur wasn’t going to tell him anything that Lenny couldn’t have learned with a quick search on the internet.

“Nearly ten years ago,” _eight years and ten months, actually_ , said a snide little voice from the back of Arthur’s mind, “my life took a turn for the worse. Some people who were important to me were killed, and I didn’t take it well. Surprisingly.”

That was an understatement.

“I was a mess. I wasn’t technically an alcoholic, but I certainly didn’t have a healthy relationship with alcohol. I wasn’t sleeping normally, and I didn’t eat much, but when I did, I just ate trash. Dutch had actually scheduled some appointments for me with a local grief counselor, and she was helpful, but I was just… lost.”

“You—look, I know I just met you not that long ago, but you seem like you’re doing okay. You seem happy.” Lenny said, shrugging a little to avoid looking Arthur in the eye.

“Yeah, well...” Get back on track, Arthur. “One day, about six or seven months after things got bad, I was in the middle of painting. I wasn’t having much luck with it, but all of a sudden, all of the color went out of my life. I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean that very literally. I was sitting in the old studio I rented, and all of a sudden, everything started going gray-scale.

“I thought I was dying. I wasn’t—but I called Hosea, and I was a nervous wreck. He and Dutch dropped everything they were working on—they were in the middle of meeting with a contractor to work on this place, actually—and they took me to the hospital.

“It was what they call a clinically isolated syndrome. That’s the name for the first episode of multiple sclerosis. Some people only ever have that first episode and are fine forever, and some people have MS for the rest of their lives. And even then, every CIS is different. I lost the ability to see color—some people lose all of their vision, some people lose all of their vision in just one eye, some people lose the ability to move an arm or a leg.

“For me, it only lasted about a week, and then I could see fine again. But when I was in the hospital, the doctors could tell it wasn’t going to be an isolated event just from the MRI I had done. So I got an appointment with an expert, down in Saint Denis, and I’ve been being treated for multiple sclerosis ever since.”

For whatever reason, Arthur found that, once he started talking about it all, it was easy to talk to Lenny.

“I don’t, I don’t have the worst case. I only have about one relapse a year, and it only lasts for a few days, and I can still walk and talk during an attack. That’s better than some people. Some people have problems all of the time, with walking and balancing, even when they’re not in the middle of a relapse, from the damage—but I don’t, and I’m lucky, and I know that.”

“So basically, what I’m saying is...” Arthur trailed off. What was he saying? He couldn’t have told Lenny all of this without there being a moral to the story. “You might get a mediocre grade on your sculpture project, and you might pass out from sleep deprivation at any given moment, but you’ll have learned as much about yourself as you will have about sculpture, and when the next finals week rolls around, and when you’re faced with another class you’re struggling with, you’ll be prepared. You’ll already know that you can get through it, and you’ll know how to get through it. You’ll have gotten better, like—”

“Like a clay pot fired in a kiln?” Lenny suggested, his eyes growing dark with suspicion.

Arthur shrugged and managed a small smile.

“I wasn’t going to be the one to make the cheesy metaphor, but if you insist.”

Lenny’s face cracked into a smile, and he took another sip of coffee. That time, he hardly grimaced at all.

“I know what you mean, and I'll think about it.  Thanks, Arthur,” he said just a moment later. “I might not get a better grade, but if I fail, I’ll at least feel a little better about it.”

“That’s the spirit.” Arthur stood, and clapped a friendly hand on Lenny’s shoulder. “No, go on, go do whatever you were going to do. Go finish that sculpture, or study, or take a nap or something.”

A beat later, Lenny finally stood, his eyes a little unfocused as he grabbed his drink and said, “Well, I was going to go to the library, but actually… I think I’m going to go take a nap.”

And he and Arthur waved goodbye.

A few days later, on Friday, the second day of finals, Jamie Gillis came in with a pair of his friends about a half an hour before closing. As he poured coffee and tea, Arthur asked about their upcoming graduation and their plans for after—it was a conversation that Mary-Beth had no interest in participating in. While Arthur made small talk with the young man and his friends, Mary-Beth very resolutely wiped down the clean countertop and pristine espresso machine to make herself look busy, so that no one would pull her into the conversation.

Once the boys had their drinks, and Jamie finished up sharing his plans to work on an apple farm for the summer, of all places, Arthur took a step back from the counter, and leaned against the back shelves. He watched as Mary-Beth continued her frantic and useless cleaning, and decided he would give her a few minutes, and wait and ask about the obvious problem once they’d shut up for the evening.

And that was exactly what he did.

There were no customers lingering when it was time to close, just as the afternoon crept into the evening, so Arthur locked the front door, first thing. Mary-Beth was already cleaning up some dirty cups and plates, ignoring Arthur’s eye.

“Mary-Beth,” he sighed, breaking the quiet between the two of them. “Is something wrong?”

Her head snaps up, towards him, and she sets the dirty dishes down on the counter.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, her voice bitter. “I’m just a directionless failure of a soon-to-be-college-graduate that has nothing to look forward to.”

“That’s not true,” Arthur said, on reflex, as he slowly walked back to the space behind the counter, where Mary-Beth stood with her arms crossed against her chest.

“No, it is.” She insisted. “I didn’t get into any of the Master’s programs I applied to—I just got the final rejection letter a few weeks ago. I probably should have applied to more, but my professors were certain I was going to get in, but then I just _didn’t_. And finding a job this close to graduation has been a bitch. The only full-time jobs hiring around here are at grocery stores and fast food places, where I would probably make less than I do here.

“And, I can’t go home. It’s not just that I won’t, but I _can’t—_ there’s no home for me to go back to. And I don’t have the money to move to Saint Denis or anywhere where there are more jobs open. I’ve already got an apartment lined up here in Limpany with two of my friends, and I’ll be able to afford a few months rent on savings, but there just aren’t any jobs here that I’m even remotely qualified for, because they’ve already been taken by people who had their shit together and applied for them months ago.

“And I would be more than happy to stay and work here, but I know Dutch and the others like to hire a set number of college students, so they’ll be hiring someone else in a few months to replace me, and I would need to pick up more hours anyway if I actually want to be able to afford rent and food and my loans, but all of the jobs the school has for recent grads have already been filled, and my creative writing degree is useless, but the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do with my life is write and I was foolish enough to think I might actually get a job—”

The longer she spoke, the higher Mary-Beth’s voice got, like some sort of key was tightening the tension in her throat.

“Mary-Beth,” Arthur said, keeping his voice low.

She stopped talking, and she stopped resolutely staring at the floor for a moment to look up at Arthur. Her eyes were shining with tears, and it broke Arthur’s heart. Mary-Beth was a good girl—a good young woman—who was bright and clever and funny and determined Arthur had no doubt about the fact that she would go on to live a happy and fulfilling life and career.

“It’ll be okay. You made a mistake years ago when you agreed to work for Dutch van der Linde and Hosea Matthews. You’re one of us. You fell into this weird little group of misfits, and we’re not letting you go. If you need to pick up more hours, you’ll pick up more hours. It’ll be fine. And I know other places in town that might not be hiring publicly, but might need some help. I’ll check with some of the galleries, and with some of my friends, and I’ll point them in your way. And it won’t just be me. Dutch, Hosea, Susan, even John and the others, we’ll all make sure you’re okay.”

“You don’t have to...” She mumbled, dropping her arms.

“Of course not, but we’re going to anyway.”

She looked up again and managed a weak smile. Mary-Beth knew it was true.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Of course. Just let John and I know when you need to start picking up more hours, and we’ll put you on the schedule, alright?”

She nodded but did not move. Arthur understood that she needed a little time to feel sorry for herself, and then he asked, “do you want a hug?”

She paused, and a little wrinkle between her eyes appeared as she considered his offer—probably, trying to figure out of he was joking or not.

“Yes.” She said, quietly. And then Arthur obligingly held out his arms, and she stepped forward, rested her head against his chest and weakly wrapped her arms around Arthur’s back.

They didn’t say anything for a few moments, and it was Mary-Beth who ended up gently pushing Arthur away and taking a step back herself.

“Alright, now, get the hell out of here.”

“I can’t leave you here to close up by yourself.” She asked, a new type of worry in her eyes.

“Yes, you can. Now, go home.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine. Now get out of here.”

She took another step back and nodded, and Arthur could see as she set her resolve, as she pushed her shoulders back and stood a little taller.

“Thank you, Arthur. You’re one of the best people I know. You’re a good manager and I’m so glad I can say I know you—and not just because you’re a famous artist that knows other famous artists. And because you let me make fun of you for wearing the same clothes all of the time and for being slow to catch on when we’re making fun of you.”

Arthur was absolutely certain that he was blushing, as he looked at Mary-Beth and listened to her declaration. Then he shook his head.

“Go on. Get out of here. Spend some time with your friends, eat some junk food. Get drunk, go.” He said, waving his hand and looking away as his voice grew heavy.

From the corner of his eye, he could see as Mary-Beth grinned wryly, and began strolling towards the front door.

“I’m going to so submit the last paper of my college career—well, I’ll proofread it a few times, first, and then submit it—and then I’m gonna go drink a whole bottle of Cabernet.” She called over her shoulder.

“Make sure you eat something.”

“Good night, Arthur. And thank you again.”

As the door swung shut behind her, Arthur took a moment to breathe and leaned his head against the cool marble of the counter for a moment, to clear his head. And then, he turned to the inevitable—taking out the trash and mopping the floor.

Arthur was almost never alone when closing up at the end of the day, so it was slow-going, but Mary-Beth deserved a chance to clear her head and breathe, and, apparently drink a whole bottle of wine.

That wasn’t exactly the best or healthiest way to relax, but Arthur couldn’t criticize her too much.

Arthur had mopped the back room and the kitchen and the main room of the coffee shop. By the time he’d moved onto the bathrooms, Arthur heard the lock in the front door turn and someone pushing the door open.

“Arthur?” Called a voice.

“Don’t slip on the floor,” Arthur said, not even bothering to look up, or lean his head around a corner to see who was there. There were only a handful of people who had a key to the coffee shop doors, and all of them had very distinctive voices.

And all of them could just sit down and wait a few minutes and not walk all over his newly clean floors.

Once he had finished with the bathroom floors, Arthur was done with the mopping and done with the chores of the day. He dumped out the dirty water and returned the cleaning supplies to the closet in the back before he finally wandered out to the main floor of the cafe. He found Hosea there, sitting at the table closest to the front door.

“There you are,” he said, putting his phone down.

“What are you doing here? Checking to make sure I’m not embezzling from you?” Arthur asked as he pulled out the chair across from Hosea and settled in.

“Eh, you’re not much of a criminal mastermind. You don’t have it in you to embezzle. Actually, I’m here with news. I already called John to let him know, but I wanted to swing by and see if you were still here. The shop will be closed next week, on Wednesday and Thursday. Dutch and I finally got things set up with the contractors to install the solar panels on the roof. Now, we could technically keep it open, and the bakery and Karen’s salon and Strauss’ office will stay open. But they have to set up their scaffolding right by our door—something about the shape of the roof, I didn’t understand why—and since this is the busiest of the businesses here, we didn’t want to have all of these people going by while they’re doing some work and risk someone dropping something or knocking something over.

“So we’ll be closed for the two least busy days of our week, and you get another day off.”

Arthur nodded. A day or two off the following week sounded like it was exactly what Arthur needed.

“Well, I’m glad. You’ve only had those solar panels waiting around for what, six months? A year?”

“It’s never too late to reduce your carbon footprint. Now, what are you going to do with your days off? Wallow without the company of your favorite coworkers? Spend a whole 72 hours in your studio without leaving?”

Arthur rolled his eyes.

“No, no. Actually, I have to go down to the Aurora Basin, to get some reference photos, at sunset and sunrise. I’ll go camping on one of my days off.”

Arthur liked Hosea and Dutch. He loved them, and not just in the way that kids love their parents and guardians. He liked spending time with them, as they were his friends as much as they were the people who fed him and taught him and signed his permission slips to go on school field trips from the age of 14 onwards.

But he should have learned that there are just certain things he shouldn’t tell them about. There were certain things he just needed to keep to himself, and he realized that the moment that Hosea’s eyes lit up.

“We all should go!” He said. “The three of us, I mean. I’ll talk to Dutch, we can rearrange a couple of meetings and go down with you. We could invite Molly, but you know how she’ll answer. We can find a nice spot and go fishing—or, Dutch and I will go fishing. It’ll be good to spend some time together, and I’ll feel better than if you went by yourself. I know you’re a perfectly capable adult, but I still worry when you camping on your own.”

Arthur flounder for a second. He knew damn well he couldn’t talk Hosea out of the idea unless he made it seem like it was Hosea’s idea not to go after all. But he’d never been very good at that sort of thing…

“I mean, you don’t need to come,” Arthur finally said.

“Oh, I know we don’t _need_ to. But maybe we want to. Unless you don’t want us to go along and would rather spend the night all alone, in the woods, surrounded by cougars and bears and wolves...”

Something twisted in Arthur’s stomach, and he knew he had just lost the fight.

“Oh, don’t you fucking guilt trip me, old man,” Arthur said, pushing his chair back and turning away from Hosea, who shrugged.

“I’m not guilt tripping you, Arthur. I’m just asking you to try and remember the last time you and Dutch and myself did anything together.”

“That’s the definition of a guilt trip.”

“Maybe so.” Hosea was entirely nonplussed.

Arthur sighed.

It had been a while since they’d done anything together, as the three of them. And maybe, just maybe, he could surprise them with his finished painting then. He’d only been working on that thing for months, after all, and it would soon be dry enough to actually varnish…

“Fine. But I’m bringing my own tent. And earplugs.”

Then it was Hosea’s turn to roll his eyes.

“It was one time, Arthur.”

“Once was enough. Not to mention, I don’t need Dutch’s snoring keeping me up all night anyway. I’ll need to be up early.”

Hosea laughed.

“His snoring’s one of at least four reasons why we keep separate bedrooms. Now, do you have dinner plans?”

There was, in fact, a very healthy salad waiting for Arthur in his refrigerator, but it would still be there tomorrow at lunchtime. So Arthur shook his head.

“Well, Dutch and Molly have plans—there’s something going on at the school, with some of her colleagues. Do you want to keep an old man company? I was thinking Italian.”

“As long as you pay.”

“It’s a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... this is kind of a fluffy filler chapter, but I couldn't resist. I first had the idea for the scene with Mary-Beth, and then I decided I could add some of Arthur's backstory in there. And then I got the idea to add Lenny and Tilly, as the other college students in the story, just to give a chance to flesh out their characters a little more, and then I couldn't resist. 
> 
> I apologize to any real college students if this stresses you out about finals.


	15. Everyone Loves Arthur Morgan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy this chapter: it's full of nothing but Arthur and his relationships with the people close to him.

“You should really just give up and ask Susan for her opinion since you don’t want any of mine,” Abigail said, dropping the catalog showing hundreds of impeccably designed and modern kitchens onto the peeling laminate countertop she leaned against.

Just beside her, in front of the stove, Arthur was busy tossing some pasta in a sauce of lemon and white wine and garlic and a handful of other things. It was keeping him busy enough that he didn’t really have time to roll his eyes, as part of him wanted to do.

“It’s not just that,” Arthur grumbled. “I haven’t decided how much I actually want to change.”

“All of it,” she said, biting. “Is there any part of this cigarette-smoke-stained 1970’s mess you like?”

Arthur sighed, dropped his spoon and picked up the potholders that laid on the counter between himself and Abigail.

“No,” he finally admitted, pulling the loaf of bread out of the oven, where it had been keeping warm.

“Well, then gut this place and start over from scratch. New floors, new cabinets, new appliances...”

“I don’t know if I want to be without a kitchen for that long. That’s going to be a lot of work, and it’s going to take a long time.”

“Oh, well, it’s a shame you don’t have anywhere else you could possibly go to eat, no one you could possibly visit, no one you could convince to go out with you and meet you with a restaurant. It is such a shame that you live in this town without a single friend or someone to call family.” Abigail said, brandishing a long knife as she cut the bread into even slices.

“She’s implying that she thinks you’re an idiot,” John said, walking into the kitchen with Boadicea held against his chest.

“I am, but I am doing it with affection.”

Arthur forced his smirk away and started dishing the pasta onto the awaiting plates.

“Thanks, I figured that one out on my own.” He said, passing a plate over to Abigail, who accepted it with a wide smile and added a few slices of bread to the plate.

“But really,” Abigail says, accepting the second plate. “It’ll be fine, Arthur. You have plenty of people who would be willing to help you out while you’re inconvenienced. I would even offer to have you over to our house, every night, but then Sadie and Dutch and Hosea would be upset that they didn’t get their share of your time.”

Arthur took the third plate, and he and Abigail followed John into the dining room, where the half-empty bottle of wine and their dessert sat, waiting for them.

“Speaking of the old geezers,” John said, picking a few ginger cat hairs from black t-shirt before taking his seat at the dining table. “Your camping trip tomorrow might be a good time to tell them about, you know.”

He left the  _us_ implied.

“What John means to say, is that neither of us could come up with a good excuse for why we asked Hosea to watch Jack for the night, instead of you. All of our excuses were real transparent, and Hosea… Hosea wasn’t much help.”

“I tried to tell him that Jack just really wanted to spend some time with his Uncles Dutch and Hosea, but they didn’t believe me, so then Hosea told Dutch that you had a date tonight, and that’s why you weren’t available to watch Jack,” John said, his voice full of forced nonchalance.

Good god.

Arthur’s head collapsed forward, his chin dropping down to his chest, and he grumbled. Dutch was like a dog with a bone—and Hosea’s greatest hobby was torturing Arthur.

It didn’t look like he was going to be able to go on that camping trick _without_ talking to them about it.

“That’s real wonderful,” Arthur muttered, lifting his head, and grabbing the bottle of wine. He filled his own, and then John and Abigail’s glasses, emptying the bottle. Then he took a generous sip from his glass, and finally, started to eat his dinner.

A beat later, John asked, “have you thought about butcher block counters?” Which prompted Abigail to roll her eyes and summarize the conversation she and Arthur had already had earlier when they exhausted every possible point of conversation that people could have about the virtues and pitfalls of wooden countertops.

Hours later, after dinner and dessert, after an evening spent tangled on the couch drawing tipsy and teasing confessions and the occasional kiss from one another, Arthur said goodnight and goodbye to the Marstons in the glowing yellow light of his front porch. While John called Hosea to let him know that they would be there to pick up Jack soon, Arthur reluctantly told Abigail that he would try and talk to Dutch about their relationship, if the moment seemed right, or if the topic just happened to pop up.

Abigail assured him that it would—and really, Arthur already knew Dutch was going to ask, or Hosea was going to box him into a corner so he had no choice but to tell Dutch, but her insistence made his gut feel heavy all the same.

Dutch fucking van der Linde.  


***  


It was mid-afternoon the following day when Arthur, Dutch, and Hosea finally took off for the Aurora Basin State Park.

The trip started how Arthur expected it would. First, the three of them had to argue about whose car they were going to take—they decided it would be Hosea’s, since it was always Hosea’s they took, since it was the largest—and then the three of them had to argue about how to pack all of their supplies in the back. Neither Dutch nor Hosea were known for being light packers, no matter where they were going or what they were doing or how long they were staying. The two of them argued about where the coolers should go, where the fishing rods should go, and where their large suitcases should go, while Arthur paced back and forth across the driveway, repeatedly running the math in his head to make sure that they would still get there in plenty of time before sunset.

They were nearly ready to go when Molly came home from the college, so then, she had to say goodbye to the three of them. That ate away at enough time that, just as they were all finally getting ready to get into the car and go, Josiah Trelawney of all people showed up, and took up another 20 minutes of their time to let the three of them know that Leviticus Cornwall’s people had sent a nice email kindly asking when they would be willing to sit down and sign over the property to their company.

Arthur was just about ready to unpack the car, take his own bags out from where they were buried at the bottom of the pile, and drive off without Dutch and Hosea when Hosea finally convinced Dutch to say goodbye to Josiah so that the three of them could leave.

Once they were finally on their way, however, they all were able to mellow out. The first half of the drive there, they all sat in relative peace and quiet. Arthur even started to nod off, his head pressed against the window, as he sat alone in the backseat.

And then, shortly after crossing the border into West Elizabeth, Dutch’s phone rang.

In the rearview mirror, Arthur could see Hosea’s vaguely annoyed glance over at Dutch as he dug through his pocket and pulled out his phone, and answered it.

Arthur didn’t pay much attention to what Dutch was saying, at first, because Dutch had a talent of saying an awful lot while also saying nothing, and because Arthur never really had the mind for business that Dutch and Hosea had.

But it was a very long conversation, one where Dutch listened more than he talked. His words to the person on the other side of the phone were pleasant and charming and polite, but whenever he was listening, Dutch was dramatically rolling his eyes, and more than once, he covered the mouthpiece on his phone with his thumb and scoffed.

So, while Arthur was trying not to fall back into his teenaged habit of eavesdropping on all of Dutch and Hosea’s conversations in case they said anything at all interesting, but the longer the conversation went on, the harder it was. Whatever it was had inspired an unusually somber mood in Dutch, although the undercurrent of frustration was obvious to Arthur.

They were near to the Manzanita Post exit by the time Dutch finally wrapped up his conversation.

“Yes, yes. I look forward to meeting you in person, Mr. Grey, and I’m certain Mr. Matthews and Mr. Trelawney would share in that sentiment… Yes, sir. I do believe this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship. Yes, yes, thank you again… Have a marvelous afternoon. Goodbye.”

Dutch ended the call, and with a groan and with a thud, his head fell back against the headrest of his seat, ruffling his hair.

Arthur waited, expecting Hosea to say something, but he just kept his eyes on the road. So Arthur bit.

“Who was that?” He asked.

Dutch sighed, and sat upright, returning to his usual stiff posture.

“That, was Mr. Douglas Grey. Or maybe that was Alister Grey. It was one of the Grey’s—they’re a family run land development firm. They’re based out of Saint Denis, but they have a satellite office in Rhodes, and I’ve contacted them for some advice about what to do about Leviticus Cornwall. They’re all witless sheep and they’re totally irresponsible about the environmental impact of their developments, but when you’re going up against a mindless industrial capitalist, you need to think like a mindless industrial capitalist. I’ve contacted a few other companies that might be able to help, but the Greys are slimy enough that they’ll be useful to us.”

“So that’s your plan? To just hurry up and develop the land?”

“That seems to be the only viable plan,” Hosea finally said, his voice grim. “Unfortunately, now we have to decide what we’re going to do with that land that will either make Cornwall uninterested in making continuing offers to buy the land or will make him legally unable to buy it. There aren’t many options for the latter, and for the former,” he sighed, and took the exit off of the interstate—they were nearly there. “Our main plan is to develop it in some way that would be horrible PR for Cornwall if they bought it and turned it into another store, or another warehouse, whatever their plans are.”

“Our top choices, right now, are to build a homeless shelter, to build a community center of some kind, or to build a small strip-mall of some sort, where we would offer extremely low rents to people from marginalized communities who are interested in starting their own business but don’t have much money to put towards an initial investment,” Dutch said, craning his neck around to look at Arthur in the backseat. “But it’s a lot of lands, and it’s got a lot of potential. We’re trying to find the perfect thing that we can build with that land, that will help our community, and make Cornwall look bad in the process.”

“And now,” Hosea said, his voice artificially chipper. “We’ve gone well and above the limit of time I said we could discuss work this trip, so that’s the end of that conversation until we get back home tomorrow afternoon.”

Dutch turned around to face the front, and Arthur could see the regretful little grimace on his face as Dutch said, “I'm sorry, my dear.”

“You should be,” Hosea grumbled.

It was only another fifteen or twenty minutes to the entrance of the park, and they all sat in peaceful silence as that time passed by.

Hosea turned at the main entrance of the park, and soon, they were surrounded by towering pine trees. They stopped outside of the visitor’s center to get their permit, and Hosea grabbed a few brochures advertising biking and kayaking activities that they absolutely were not going to do, but he insisted on reading them anyway. They found their camping spot easily, at the northeastern corner of the lake. It was early in the season, and it was the middle of the week, so the camp was fairly deserted. Aside from a few retirement-age people with RVs, they had a good portion of the park to themselves.

They parked, and tent by tent, fishing rod by fishing rod, bag by bag, began unloading everything from Hosea’s car. That accomplished, Arthur turned his attention towards his own tent, but Hosea stopped him with a shake of his head and a hand on Arthur’s arm.

“We’ll take care of that, Arthur. There’s only an hour and a half to sunset, and I know you—you’ll want every one of those minutes to get ready and find the perfect angle. Go, take your pictures, and we’ll get everything set up here.”

Over Hosea’s shoulder, Dutch nodded and waved one hand in a dismissive swipe while he set up his and Hosea’s tent.

“Thanks,” Arthur said. And then he changed into his hiking boots, grabbed his camera, and set off towards the same spot where he’d taken his reference photos a few weeks before.

Thankfully, the sky cooperated for Arthur that evening. There were a few wispy clouds, but not enough to block out the brilliant oranges and purples and blues and pinks in the sky. And no one was out on boats in the middle of the water, so there was nothing to disrupt the beautiful, rippling reflection of the brilliant colors in the sky on the lake’s surface.

Once the sky had finally turned a solid shade of dark blue, Arthur left, satisfied he had enough to go off of. Now, he would just need to take similar pictures in the morning, with the completely different light provided by the dawn, and decide which he preferred for his painting.

Making the trek back to camp, Arthur found the campsite had been set up, as Hosea said it would be. Dutch and Hosea were sitting side by side next to the crackling fire, with Dutch’s head nestled against Hosea’s shoulder. There was a kettle steaming away on the fire, and something cooking in a pot.

They eat quickly, and once they’ve gathered up their dirty dishes, they all break off towards their tents to grab a jacket or blanket. It’s May, so the nights were still a little damp and chilly, and the cold water of the lake wasn’t exactly helping the three men to keep warm.

Hosea fixed a mug of some kind of herbal tea for each of them, and from behind his back, Dutch produced a shining silver flask. He does not even ask before he pours a generous portion of whiskey into each mug with a devilish grin on his face.  Hosea watched with a chagrined smile, but takes his mug of spiked tea and settles into his chair near the fire.  Arthur does the same.

They chat, for a while.  Mostly, they reminisce on previous trips between the three of them, or trips they took with John or Bessie or Annabelle.  There was a time, after Bessie and Annabelle's untimely deaths, where they would go somewhere and do something every weekend that they possibly could, to spend time together and to keep their minds away from their loss.   

“When was the last time we came down here? It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?” Dutch asked, and the three of them bowed their heads, looking away to rack through their brains and try and remember.

Arthur got there first.

“It was ages ago,” he said, taking another sip of his tea. “Right after you bought that speed boat that you only had for, what was it, four months? Five? Before you gave up and sold it to that guy who works in the mayor's office.”

“You and John were, what, 18 and 15? 16?”

“Around that age.”

Dutch chuckled and poured a little more of the whiskey into his tea.

They traded a few more stories, like that time that Arthur and some of his friends from college had borrowed all of Dutch and Hosea’s fishing equipment and had taken it in order to go fishing over the spring break, and how Dutch and Hosea knew damn well that the fishing was just an excuse to spend their day in the sun, drinking cheap beer.

“Speaking of which,” Hosea said, his voice laced with a certain level of mischief that made the coward in Arthur want to stand up and walk away immediately. “How was your date last night?” He asked, taking a sip of his tea to hide growing, self-satisfied smirk on his face from Dutch.

“Good,” was all Arthur said, forcing the word out through gritted teeth.

Dutch, meanwhile, sat up straight, a look of curiosity sinking into his face.

“So you actually had a date last night? I thought John and Abigail were joking since you’ve been having quite the dry spell.”

“Uh, yeah,” Arthur admitted, taking a large gulp his spiked tea. “I had a date.”

There were numerous ways he could have continued, to provide more detail. But none of them seemed quite right, so Arthur hesitated, and his hesitation gave Dutch an opening.

“Well, do you actually want to tell us anything about it? Or are you expecting us to guess?”

“I—” Arthur starts to say, with no plan on how he was going to continue that statement. He should tell Dutch something—he deserved to know, and he should know. And it would make things easier, down the road. And here he was in a perfect time and place to tell him, but. What was he supposed to say?

“I just think, it must have been an interesting night, if both you and the Marstons had a date. Was it a blue moon? Is it something to do with your zodiac signs? Did a witch have something to do with it?”

“My date was with John and Abigail,” Arthur said, looking Dutch right in the eye. And Arthur watched, as the shock settled onto Dutch’s face, as his eyes widened and his mustache twitched.

“Oh.” He said, his eyes dropping down to the fire. “You had a double date. I’m not really a fan of them, myself, but if you said it was good, then—”

“Don’t be obtuse, Dutch.” Arthur snapped. Surely, Dutch was joking. He knew what Arthur meant, right?

Dutch’s jaw dropped, and he leaned forward in his chair.

“How on earth am I being obtuse?” He cried, his voice growing louder with his accusation. Hosea, meanwhile, leaned further back in his seat, and Arthur could clearly see how well Hosea was enjoying himself, his whole damn body shaking with his laughter.

“You know damn well what I meant. I meant, that John and Abigail were my dates. They were at my house.  I made dinner, and there was wine and dessert and— _Jesus_.” Arthur hid his face in his hands and tried to ignore the stifled laughter coming from Hosea’s direction. He started massaging his temples when he heard, from Dutch, a soft “oh.”

Reluctantly, Arthur looked up. Any indignity had faded vanished from Dutch’s face when Arthur had looked away, and now he just looked… baffled.

“You mean…”

“Yup.”

“The three of you…”

“Yes.”

Dutch continued to stare, blankly, in Arthur’s general direction. Hosea, on the other hand, finally seemed to get his laughter under control, and watched, discretely, out of the corner of his eye for Dutch’s impending reaction.

It never really came.

After another moment, Dutch leaned back in his chair, and said, “huh.”

Arthur wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say anything else, or not. So he watched in the light of the crackling fire, as Dutch blinked away the rest of the confusion from his eyes, and his shoulders finally relaxed.

“So...”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Just a few weeks.” Maybe that was an underestimate, but Dutch didn’t need to know that.

“And things have been going… well?”

“Seems like it.”

“And do you have any plans to date anyone besides the two of them?” He asked.

Why did he always know exactly the wrong thing to ask?

“Maybe,” Arthur said, deliberately not thinking about how he really had had no opportunity to talk to Charles since the party. Maybe he should find his email address, and reach out.

“Well, have you talked about that? Communication is key, in any relationship, but in—”

“Yes, Dutch, we’ve talked about.”

“Well, that’s good. If the three of you ever want to borrow some books, about maintaining a healthy polyamorous relationship—a”

“If that happens,” Arthur said, trying very hard for Dutch to understand how much he was not enjoying the conversation. “You will be the first person we ask for book recommendations.”

Dutch’s head fell to the side, and he fell quiet. He seemed to realize Arthur would be happier if the conversation was over, but Dutch didn’t seem quite ready to give it up, because he was a cold-hearted bastard.

“Well, then I’m happy for you,” Dutch said, his voice warm and sweet. “All three of you. John has only had a crush on you since he was, oh, about 12, so—”

Arthur sighed.

“We don’t need to talk about this—”

“And Abigail is good for you and John both.  She’s a strong woman, who knows what she wants and how to work for it. She'll keep the two of you in line—”

“Goodnight,” Arthur said, grabbing his jacket and spare blanket, and passing his empty mug of tea to Hosea, foisting responsibility off on him. Hosea spared Arthur the shortest of commiserating glances, but he didn’t look all that sympathetic for Arthur.

“Oh, now, don’t be a bad sport about this, Arthur.”

Arthur ignored Dutch, and stood up, and shook the tension from his shoulders.

“I’m going to bed.” He said. “I’ll trust you two to take care of the food and fire since you’re the ones who invited yourselves along on my camping trip—”

“Hosea was the one who—”

“I brought my noise-canceling headphones,” Arthur said, not looking either of them in the eye, “so I won’t be able to hear you. If the whole forest catches on fire, or if there’s a rabid grizzly bear digging around here—”

“It’s very unusual for a bear to have rabies—”

“You’re going to have to try a little harder to wake me up. Otherwise, I will be unable to hear you, which, if I’m being honest, is what I want. So, goodnight.”

“It was one time, Arthur.” Dutch insisted, with another one of his dramatic eye rolls. “And after all the embarrassment you put the two of us through when you would sneak your first girlfriend into the house at night—”

“I said, _goodnight_ , Dutch.” Arthur, walking towards his little tent.

“And the two of you were so far from discrete. And then, the two of you broke up, so Hosea and Bessie and Annabelle and I, we thought we were spared that torture—”

“Sleep tight.” Arthur opened the doorway to his tent.

“But then you went and got your first boyfriend, and you tried to sneak him into the house too—”

“Don’t let the rabid grizzly bears bite.”

And Arthur shut himself inside of his tent.

After he settled into his sleeping bag, placed the hot water bottle near his feet, and fluffed up his pillow, Arthur grabbed his phone to make sure its battery was well charged, and that his alarm was set for well before sunrise.

He had a message—just one. It was from Abigail, in the group chat between the three of them.

_???_

She’d sent it a while ago, and since she still had work in the morning, it was entirely possible that they’d both already gone to bed.

Regardless, Arthur replied by sending the thumbs-up emoji, and only a split second later, Abigail replied with her preferred heart emoji, the pink one with the little glimmering stars.

Arthur tapped his thumbs against the side of his phone, trying to decide if he wanted to continue the conversation, or do the responsible thing and go to sleep.

But then John replied _anytime you two want me to teach you to type in full sentences again, let me know_ and Arthur’s mind was made up. A small, warm little feeling burst behind his sternum when he imagined Abigail reading John’s response, and the two of them, poking or pinching each other as they traded teasing names, maybe hitting each other in the face with their pillows if they were laying in bed.

Arthur slipped on his headphones, and sent a message to them both, saying _Abigail, i’ll leave you to punish john in person._ _Goodnight, you_ _2._

Then he turned onto his side, nestled into his blankets, and drifted off to sleep, lulled by the white noise app on his phone. He was blissfully unaware of anything that may or may not have been happening beyond his tent.  


***

The following afternoon, Arthur dozed during most of the drive home. As he had repeatedly reminded Dutch and Hosea as they packed up their tents and other supplies earlier, he was the one who had been up since sunrise, and they were the ones who ruined his chance at solitude. So neither of them tried to draw Arthur into a conversation from the front seat, and they certainly didn’t try to get Arthur to join in as they sang along with the radio.

The only thing he did during their drive home was send one message to Molly, and receive one in return.

Once they get back to their house, Arthur volunteers to help fit all of their camping equipment back into its places in the garage. Molly meets them there, as they’re in the middle of trying to remember where each cooler goes and greets Dutch with a cloyingly sweet kiss. Then, she pulled back and gives Hosea a kind smile and Arthur a very discrete wink.

“I’ll go get drinks ready in the kitchen, and the three of you can tell me all about your trip.”

And she turns with a swish of her skirt and vanishes.

Arthur starts to feel just a little nervous once the final fishing rod has been put away. He knows they’ll like the painting, but will they really like it?

He follows two steps behind as they leave the garage through the little side door, and walk down the hallway that connected to the foyer and the main door. Arthur starts to worry, that maybe they would walk right past and not even notice it, and then what is he supposed to do? Just leave, and wait for them to eventually notice—

Arthur didn’t need to worry. Dutch took one step inside of the foyer and noticed it immediately. He stopped dead, and a split second after, Hosea noticed his Dutch stop short. Hosea stopped walking as well.

Their eyes were wide and glued to the painting of Molly. Arthur had hired a few friends from Hamish's gallery to come and hang the painting earlier that morning. Just as he had intended, it looked very well on that wall, displayed in bright daylight.

“What is this?” Hosea asked.

“Well… I thought you should have something more recent of mine. Something better than the old paintings you always brag about. I thought you should have something bright and colorful, and complex, so.” He waved a hand at the painting. He thought it should speak for itself.

Hosea nodded, agreeing to a question Arthur never asked. Dutch, meanwhile, said nothing. He just stared at the painting, his eyes raking across every inch of pigment.

“How long have you been working on this?”

“About a year.”

“I don’t know how you still manage to surprise us, son,” Hosea said, shaking his head and approaching the painting as closely as he dared.

Dutch still said nothing.

“It’s marvelous,” Hosea mumbled, turning his head to the side. “It really is.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Arthur said, the meaning every word. “Dutch, do you—”

Dutch interrupts him, his head snapping so quickly to Arthur’s face that Arthur was a little worried he might have given himself some kind of neck injury.

“I need to call the home security company.” He said. “If this is going to hang right on the wall inside of the front door, right in the place of honor—”

“You can hang it anywhere you want, Dutch—”

“No, no, it’s going to stay here, right where everyone can see it. But I don’t want anyone growing envious of this, so I’m going to make sure this painting has the best security money can buy. I want better than museum quality.  And the electrician, we need to install better lighting, so it looks just as good at night,” and Dutch turned sharply and marched right out of the foyer, in god knows what direction.

There’s a moment, where Hosea and Arthur stare blankly at the space where Dutch had just stood, and their silence is broken by one of Hosea’s coughs.

Hosea cleared his throat and grasped Arthur by the shoulder.  Arthur felt no small amount of pride.  

“I think it’s safe to say he likes it.”

Arthur agreed.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one was a little late. I didn't have much of this chapter written in advance, and then no one in my family thought to warn me that some of our elderly, out-of-state relatives were going to be in town for Easter. They weren't even staying at our house, but considering how much time they spent there... they might as well have been. 
> 
> Also, I have not been camping at any place that wasn't a girl scout camp/church camp since I was a very small child, so I relied on the internet to try and figure out how camping works. Apologies to any dedicated campers for all of the camping rules I know I broke.


	16. Much Ado about Everything

Arthur returned to work the following Friday, and aside from all of the travel-weary parents stopping by for a cup of coffee, having just arrived in town in anticipation of the college graduation ceremony the following morning, it was quiet. Tilly was there with him—she’d gotten a job on campus for the summer, working as an assistant in one of the labs, and would be sticking around and picking up a few shifts. She’d recuperated after the stress of her finals and was back to her usual self.

He worked at the coffee shop until morning, and then John came in around noon, and they traded off shifts. Arthur left, and returned to his studio, where he decided, as beautiful as the sunset at Aurora Basin was, to paint the lake in the light of the dawn.

Friday was a normal day, for Arthur.

Saturday was different.

Just as he did on Friday, Arthur arrived at the coffee shop first and made sure the shop was ready to open. Javier arrived shortly after to help brew the fresh coffee and arrange the pastries in the display case, and to make sure the little stations were well stocked with sugar and honey and milk and that the self-serve pictures of water were full.

Tilly and Sean arrived shortly before opening. Tilly was her usual self, first thing in the morning—pleasant, but a little absent minded—and Sean was his usual self, all of the time—loud and boisterous.

It was Sean who spilled the beans.

“Arthur Morgan, you dark horse, you.” Sean cried, his voice echoing through the nearly empty cafe. “I’ve heard some interesting rumors about your personal life, and I must say—that’s exactly what I’ve always expected of you.”

Arthur’s stomach flips with anxiety, and he freezes, his hands full of the clean coffee mugs he’d been loading on a shelf.

“What?” He asks, keeping his voice grim.

“Word on the street is,” Sean said, “is that you and our dear Johnny Marston and the lovely Abigail are in a throuple.”

Arthur tried not to visibly cringe. Sean was deliberately looking away from Arthur and was protecting himself by making himself useful, restocking the little cups with forks and spoons and knives. But Arthur could feel Tilly and Javier less than discretely watching him.

“And who told you that?”

“Why, my beloved Karen, of course.”

“And who told Karen?”

“Mary-Beth did.”

“And who told Mary-Beth?”

“Kieran.”

“And who the hell told Kieran?”

Sean paused.

“I don’t know.” He admitted.

Arthur… Arthur could have guessed, who told Kieran. If he remembered the schedule correctly, Kieran last worked the day before, on Friday afternoon. And if Arthur remembered correctly, _Dutch_ had been planning on stopping by Horseshoe Overlook on Friday afternoon in order to check out the newly installed solar panels. Kieran hadn’t been working alone—no, John had been there. So, Arthur had to assume that Dutch had pulled John aside for some kind of ‘ _I’m happy for you, son_ ’ conversation, and had spoken loudly enough for Kieran to overhear.

Goddamn, that man.

With all of the mugs in place, Arthur turned on his heel and set about making his own coffee, as Javier went and unlocked the front door. As he poured his coffee into the cup he’d grabbed, he grumbled, his tone with defeat.

Sean turned around and started walking back to his place at the counter, ready to have Arthur openly admit it.

That never happened.

Rather, Arthur sighed, and took a sip of his coffee, and tried to stare straight ahead, into and through the opposite wall, through his own sketch of Window Rock.

While Arthur was busy ignoring Sean’s curious look and trying to pretend he was anywhere else on the planet, Tilly sidled up alongside him. Which, made sense. Tilly usually worked the register, since all of the customers loved her. Arthur was standing in her spot…

But instead of asking him to move, she asked, “are you going to say anything?”

“Hmm… no.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re all ravenous for gossip, and somehow, it’s always my personal life that you all use for fodder. I never told any of you that I date men and women, and yet, somehow—”

Tilly sighed and gave him a look that was part maternal, and part condescending.

“It says that you’re bi right on your Wikipedia page, Arthur,” she said.

“I have a— _Jesus_.”

Arthur could practically feel his blood pressure rising.

_Why does he even like these people?_

About an hour later, after the earliest of the morning rushes, Arthur stepped back into the back room and sent a message.

_Dutch is a fucking snitch._

A split second later, Abigail replied, _was it Dutch who told? Uncle found out somehow, and he won’t stop making dirty jokes about it. I’ve threatened to fire him four times this morning and he won’t stop_

And before Arthur could say anything, John messaged _I will blame Dutch for anything_

On and off throughout that morning, Sean occasionally snuck in a few suggestive comments to Arthur, things like asking where they found a big enough bed for the three of them, and he also tried to work the word ‘spitroast’ into conversations where it didn’t belong. Arthur would have given Sean some sort of written warning or threatened to fire him, but unfortunately, Sean was not afraid of him, so he wasn’t certain how much good that would do.

Shortly before lunch, and shortly before Arthur would have gotten the chance to leave and be free of Sean for the next few days, the loose-lipped man himself walked into the coffee shop. But Arthur couldn’t complain about Dutch spilling any secrets, because Dutch was not alone.

Hosea and Trelawney were with him, which wasn't anything surprising, even on a Saturday. And their presence alone would not be enough to stop Arthur from ranting about Dutch sharing his personal business with Kieran Duffy, of all people the second Dutch stepped near. But there was another man with them, one that Arthur didn’t recognize. The last man through the door was a little on the short size, he had a mustache, and something possessed this man that made him think that wearing a cowboy hat with a suit was a good idea.

“Arthur!”

“Dutch.” Arthur answered, his voice flat. He narrowed his eyes, and Arthur could see that Dutch knew that he was in trouble and that Dutch knew exactly what he’d done.

Half of a step behind Dutch, Hosea tilted his head to the side when he saw the look shared between Dutch and Arthur, but he did not say anything. He didn’t have time to do so, because Josiah interrupted, greeting Arthur in his usual bombastic way.

“Why, hello there, Arthur. Don’t you look well, today.”

“Thank you, Josiah,” Arthur drawled, giving Josiah only the most passing of glances before turning his gaze back to Dutch, who shifted his weight uncomfortably.

Dutch cleared his throat and cast his eyes down. It wasn’t an expression he wore often, but it was one that Arthur could have called contrite. It wasn’t an expression that looked entirely natural on Dutch’s face.

“Arthur, my friend,” Dutch said, a little slowly. “This is Mr. Leigh Grey. He’s from the land development firm that I told you about. We just got done showing him around the property at the south end of town.”

The mustachioed man stepped closer and held his hand over the counter. Arthur, who had been in the middle of restocking the pastry display, set down the pair of tongs he’d been holding and shook his hand. It was a little clammy.

“Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

Arthur was totally ambivalent about meeting the man, but his mother, and Hosea after her, didn’t raise Arthur to not be polite to complete strangers.

“Mr. Grey here says that he and his family’s firm will have plenty of prospective ideas for how we could develop that land.”

“Yes, sir.” The man said. “We’ll have at least a handful of ideas sent up here by this time next week. The Grey family will have many innovative and responsible ways to develop that land in a way that will benefit your community for years to come. More so than any other firm out there, I can guarantee that.”

Arthur nodded, reluctantly. Every other firm out there probably said exactly the same thing.

Then he cast another glare at Dutch, before he took a steady breath.

“Well, did you come in here to talk, or to get drinks?”

“Drinks, of course.” Dutch said, sliding a $20 bill across the counter, keeping his eyes down as he did so. “Keep the change.”

“Mmhmm.” Dutch really should have known that Arthur was as close to being immune to Dutch’s charm as anyone really could be. Or maybe he was second, to Hosea.

Turning to the new man, Mr. Grey, and deliberately looking away from Dutch, Arthur asked: “What can I get for you today?”

“Just a medium drip coffee, dark roast. To go.”

Arthur nodded.

“The usual, Josiah?”

“Yes, of course, dear boy.”

“And which tea will it be today, Hosea?”

“Did Susan restock that hibiscus blend?”

“Yes, she did.”

Arthur took one last opportunity to glare at Dutch, while around him, the three other employees set to making the other men’s drinks.

“And Dutch, my dear friend. What would you like?” Arthur asked, knowing damn well what the answer would be.

“A cappuccino—”

“With almond milk. Of course.”

Arthur made Dutch’s drink, and, in a show of great maturity, didn’t skimp on the milk foam, as a childish part of him was very tempted to do.

And then, after Hosea did his usual trick of trying to discretely push a large-denomination bill in the tip jar without any of the employees knowing who it was, the four men left directly through the front door, following Dutch’s lead.

Coward.

Josiah and Trelawney followed without a second’s hesitation, but Hosea was the last through the door, and he took the time to raise his brows and send one last questioning look in Arthur’s direction before he let the door fall shut behind him.

Arthur went home, and tried to forget about Dutch, tried to forget about the fact that all of his coworkers knew more information that he ever really wanted them to know about his intimate life. Can’t a grown adult man, with two jobs and a mortgage and a cat, and a married boyfriend and girlfriend, have some small measure of privacy? Or was that too much to ask for?

Hours later, Arthur was in his studio, covering a painting of some of the Heartland’s rolling hills with veneer. He’d finished the painting months ago but wasn’t certain if he’d been happy with it until eventually, he decided he needed to paint just a little more shadow in the valley between the hills, and then, it was complete. But it had only just finished drying, and it was time to finish it. He was nearly done when his phone pinged with a message, and he had to wait until he was finished before he could answer it.

It was Hosea, a man who texted with a certain terseness that only someone who hates sending text messages can achieve.

_Smthng the matter w/ u & Dutch? _

Arthur typed out a response as fast as his fingers could move, and set his phone aside. He wasn’t expecting a response.

_Just got surprised this morning with the fact that every one of the employees at the shop knows about John and Abi and I and it was Dutch who decided to share the news, instead of anyone who actually had any right to_

It wasn’t that Arthur was angry, exactly. If he had to pick from all of the synonyms he knew for ‘angry,’ he would have gone with irked. He wasn’t ashamed of his relationship with John and Abigail, but he wasn’t ready for everyone to know. He didn’t think John and Abigail were ready for everyone to know, either—they hadn’t even told Jack, yet, but they certainly would have to now, in case he overheard some gossip while he hung around the coffee shop or the bakery.

And Arthur couldn’t really be angry, because a small part of him expected this. Dutch could be boastful, and while he’d been shocked with Arthur had first told him, Arthur had expected some sort of praise and cheer and prideful jokes. That the three of them, his Arthur, his John, his Abigail, had started etching out a relationship for themselves, or that Arthur had the courage to search out his own happiness again. For one reason or another, Dutch was proud, and Dutch couldn’t keep his mouth shut when he wanted other people to know how proud he was.

But Arthur expected he would at least last a little while longer before he spilled his guts to someone. And Arthur wasn’t expecting it to be Kieran Duffy of all people—Arthur assumed it would be Molly, or one of the retirement-aged ladies in Dutch’s book club.

Or perhaps Molly already knew, and maybe some kind grandmother who was a member at the library on the north end of town already knew. Maybe he'd gone and blabbed to all of them.  It wouldn’t be surprising.

***

Arthur worked the following morning, but he had one blessed distraction—Mary-Beth.

She’d graduated the day before, and everyone knew she’d cut ties with what little family she had left years before. Tilly and her other sorority sisters had been the only family there to watch her graduate and accept her diploma.  Although Molly, from her spot with the other professors, had cheered extra loud, just for her.  But Mary-Beth didn't have anyonce to celebrate in her honor after the fact.  

So Abigail and Simon surprised her, first thing in the morning, with a cake. It was extravagant—chocolate, with chocolate ganache and raspberry preserves—and delicious. Arthur helped Mary-Beth cut it while the other openers—Tilly and Kieran and the Calendar brothers and even Uncle—cheered and congratulated her.

No one said anything about Arthur, or Abigail, or John, while they rushed to eat a slice of cake first thing in the morning before they had no choice but to open the doors. No one said anything when Susan dropped by to run her exacting eye over the coffee shop and to pass along a small gift box to Mary-Beth. No one even said anything when the owners and employees of the bakery realized they couldn’t stay away any longer, and left the coffee shop, Abigail at the end of the pack.

No, everyone was too busy congratulating Mary-Beth, giving her pointers on where she could go around Limpany to find a job, and asking her about the ceremony the day beforehand. And even Arthur had forgotten about it, happy as he was to see the return of Mary-Beth’s usual confidence and distracted by the strange flirtation between her and Kieran.

And then Monday came.

The day after graduation, Limpany always felt like some sort of switch had been flipped. Yes, the elementary and high school students still had a month or so of school left, and the weather was still a little dreary and rainy, but Limpany was halfway to summer. Certain professors had already left, ready to attend conferences or ready to put their grant money to good use and travel across the world to meet with other academics, to spend their time in dusty archives or in special labs at all four corners of the earth. Nearly all of the students were gone, except for those who had summer classes or summer jobs on campus, like Tilly, and those who had graduated and were going to settle in Limpany for a while, like Mary-Beth. And there would be a time, later, when a bunch of high school students would descent on the college and live in the dorms for a few weeks as a part of one program or camp or the other, but everyone in Limpany felt and noticed the sudden emptiness.

Which left the employees of Van Der Linde’s Coffee and Tea time to talk.

Arthur tried his very best to lead any and all conversations away from the subject of him, with some success. That didn’t stop Mary-Beth from making the occasional kind, supportive, and unnecessary comments about how great and revolutionary it was to break down the restrictive traditions of heterosexual monogamy, and a dozen other social structures that Arthur ignored.

It was tiring, but it would pass.

It was tiring enough that, two minutes after Javier arrived to take over for Arthur, Arthur sat in the driver’s seat of his parked car, and just stared vacantly out of the window in front of him.

Was it worth it, to go back home to his studio and try to get some more work done? It was a nice day—maybe a little cool, for early May, but it wasn’t horrible. It was sunny, so maybe he could spend some time at the park. Maybe he could go for a jog since it wasn’t so hot or humid out. Or maybe—

Arthur snapped out of his thoughts when a familiar car parked on the opposite side of the street, a hundred feet or so away.

It was Dutch, again. This time, a grey-haired woman in a blue suit followed him into the light blue front door of the coffee shop, and she was followed by a younger man who, if Arthur had to guess, was the woman’s son.

Well.

Arthur rubbed at the tension in his jaw, sat up a little straighter in his chair, and grabbed his sunglasses from where they usually sat on his passenger seat.

Dutch was usually a shameless kind of person—both in the sense that he was confident and in the sense that he was rarely sorry about any of the decisions he made. He was also very far from being the kind of person who avoided confrontation. But it was a real big coincidence that Dutch just happened to show up at the coffee shop right after Arthur had left, wasn’t it?

And then Arthur turned on his car, and turned the radio up. It was too nice of a day to spend it thinking about Dutch.

Arthur was off for the next two days, and by the time those two days had passed, he’d nearly forgotten about how Dutch had shared secrets that were not his to share, and he’d assumed that everyone else at the shop had, too. John had basically confirmed as much. That Wednesday night, they’d all taken Jack out to dinner, together.

Arthur didn’t ask if they’d told Jack. He probably should have, but he hadn’t really wanted to ruin the easy conversation. That was his own fault.

When Arthur returned to the shop on that Thursday afternoon, he was faced with the immediate and crushing realization that he had been focused on the wrong problems.

It was nearly time to close up when Charles Smith came back to the coffee shop for the first time in a while. Things were pretty slow at that point in the afternoon, so Arthur had asked Kieran to go to the back, and get started on washing all of the used cups and mugs and plates.

Arthur offered Charles a friendly nod and smile as soon as he walked through the door, which Charles returned. Charles ordered his usual, an americano to go, and Arthur started making it the second he’d passed Charles’ card back into his open, waiting, warm, and very strong looking hand.

“So, have your classes started yet?” Arthur asked over the hissing of the espresso machine.

“The classes for high school students started this week. The ones for students at MacAlister start in two weeks.”

“And how’s the incomplete first week going?”

“Alright. The class is twice a week, and we haven’t really done anything interesting yet. I hadn’t expected just how great of a disparity there is, between the students’ previous experience. Some of them are novices, which is fine, and some of them are almost professionals already.”

“I guess you just need to teach them how to make their own website portfolio, and how to order some business cards, and they’re set,” Arthur said. He looked up once he’d poured the espresso into the cup, and was surprised to see the warm, almost indulgent smile on Charles’ face. He was just a little less surprised by the warm, twisting feeling high in his stomach that followed.

“If I teach them how to make contacts with magazines and publishers and documentarians, they’ll put me out of a job.”

“Oh, now, come on. I’m sure you’re all ready to retire at your old age. You’re, what, 32? 33?”

Charles laughed and felt like it was a little moment of success for Arthur.

“Yeah, I’m certainly old enough to retire,” Charles said, rolling his eyes, even as he still smiled. “I’m at least old enough that these kids are making me think I might not be so secure in my job.”

The door opened again, and Arthur slid the paper to-go cap across the counter to Charles, who took it and curled his hand around the VDL logo on the side.

“I’m certain you’ll have plenty of things you can teach these kids, and I’m sure they’ll all appreciate your wisdom and guidance so very much.”

And then Arthur spared a quick glance to the person who had gotten in line after Charles. It was a young woman, unfamiliar to Arthur, with blond hair and a large bag slung over her shoulder.

“Thank you, Arthur.” He took his drink and took a half a step back from the counter. “I should go,” he said. Arthur nodded because it was the polite thing to do.

“Excuse me?” The young woman asked.

“Goodbye, Arthur,” Charles said. And then he strolled towards the door with a small wave of his hand.  "Have a nice afternoon."  

“See you, Charles.”

And another goddamn chance to get Charles’ phone number—without it coming across as creepy—vanished with the jingle of that stupid bell over the door.

“How can I help you?” Arthur asked, trying to keep any disappointment from coating his words. It didn’t work.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I interrupt your flirting?” She asked, a flash of disappointing crossing her own face. “Not that I’m expecting you to tell a complete stranger about who or who you’re not flirting with. Let’s forget this part of the conversation never happened, shall we? Could you tell me if Dutch van der Linde, or Hosea Matthews, are around?”

Arthur paused. This young woman was… interesting.

“Oh, no, they’re not. Could I help you? Maybe?”

“Maybe.” She answered, holding her hand over the counter for Arthur to shake. “My name’s Penelope Braithwaite. Mr. van der Linde had reached out to my aunt’s land development firm and real estate firm about a property here in town. One of my cousins asked me to drop some a few early plans off for him to review in person since I was already coming to Limpany to visit some friends. Of course, he didn’t bother to give me a specific address where I should deliver these, and my whole family resents my existence, so no one at the office returned any of my calls asking for an address, so this is where the internet told me to go.”

“Well, sorry. They only tend to drop by here at random, unexpected moments. But I could deliver them for you, if you’re not supposed to deliver them directly into Dutch or Hosea’s hands.”

The young woman nodded and reached into the bag. She pulled out a brown file folder, and set it onto the counter.

“I’m sure that’s what they expect of me, but I honestly do not care. They’re not paying me or anything.”

“Hmm. Well, I promise, I will deliver these to Dutch personally, for you.”

And then she smiled, with perfect, gleaming white teeth.

“Why, thank you, Mr.—”

“Arthur Morgan. But Arthur’s fine.”

“Well, thank you again.” She started to move, to take one step away from the counter, but she stopped as her eyes drifted up, to the menu above Arthur’s head. “Actually… while I’m here, could I get a medium earl grey tea, to go?”

“Of course,” Arthur said, and she immediately scrambled around through her very large bag for a wallet.

She passed a $5 bill over the counter and dropped her change into the tip jar. Arthur grabbed a cup and belatedly realized that he should probably move that file out of the way, first.

“Sounds like you have quite the relationship with your family,” Arthur said, tucking the file away on the little shelf under the marble counter. It was a valiant attempt at small talk.

“I do—how kind of you to notice.” She said, her sardonic tone not really directed towards Arthur, but he still felt the sting of her words as they settled in. Maybe that was a dumb thing to say. But she continued on, unoffended, as Arthur grabbed a tea bag from one of the glass jars and poured the hot water.

“See, they’re all horrible, backwards people. I’ve always been the black sheep, but a few months ago, I sold some jewelry, all family heirlooms that I had inherited. I only sold what was explicitly mine, a necklace and earrings I inherited from my Grandma Braithwaite. But my cousins and my aunt didn’t take too kindly to that, even though they knew I had no interest in owning blood diamonds. They thought I was betraying our heritage, or something—like our heritage of owning a tobacco plantation and running moonshine is so much to be proud of.”

“Some people are like that,” Arthur said. He knew some of them by name. “Is that why you all seem to have so much contempt for one another?”

“Oh, no, there’s an endless list of reasons. I go to an elitist school in Boston and spend all of my time trying to prove how much better than them I am; I’ve been dating Beau Grey, the nephew of my aunt’s greatest business rival, for years; I’m a girl, the list goes on and on.”

Arthur nodded and set the cup of steeping tea before Penelope.

She took it, and sipped it, immediately, and waved goodbye.

“Well. Good luck, Penelope Braithwaite.” Arthur said because he needed to say something, and Penelope was… interesting.

“Thank you, Mr. Morgan. And this tea is excellent,” she said, already pushing her way through the door.

“Jesus, Dutch,” is what Arthur muttered under his breath the moment the door shut behind her.

Half of an hour later, Arthur said goodbye to Kieran, and he drove five minutes to the north end of town. He parked in the driveway, at the house on the cliff, and let himself in. Dutch and Hosea, at least, were both home, but no one greeted him at the door aside from The Count, who pressed his wet nose against Arthur’s hand the moment he stepped through the door, and Arthur rewarded him with the head and chin scratches the dog sought.

Once The Count seemed content, Arthur stepped out of the foyer, and down the little set of stairs by the kitchen, down the hall, to Dutch’s office.

“Dutch?” He called, giving Dutch some warning that he was approaching.

There was a beat, as Arthur walked silently down the hall, towards the last door on the right.

“Arthur?” Dutch called.

“I have some papers, for you.” Arthur said, pushing the door to Dutch’s office open, and stepping inside.

Dutch’s office was a cozy sort of room, decorated with aged, antique oriental rugs, plush chairs, shelves overstuffed with books, and a vintage gramophone that hadn’t worked in a dozen years.

“This girl, she dropped them off at the coffee shop. They’re from her aunt’s firm, the Braithwaites.” Arthur held out the file. Dutch stood and took the file from Arthur’s hands. He opened it immediately and rifled through paper after paper, flipping them over and turning them this way and that.  

“Well, that was certainly fast. Thank you, Arthur, for bringing these over.”

Dutch did not take his eyes off of the papers. So Arthur continued.

“The girl—she, uh, mentioned something.”

“And what was that?” Dutch asked, absently

“Just that the Greys and Braithwaites are mortal enemies of each other.”

Dutch’s eyes snapped up, away from the file, to Arthur’s face.

“Yes,” was all he said, his face blank. But something was off—Dutch was hiding something.

“You knew that?” Arthur asked as he took one step closer to Dutch’s giant desk.

And then Dutch’s face broke. No longer smooth and blank, it was… resigned.

“Yes.” He admitted, dropping the file on his desk before he pulled a little at the front of his red vest. “That’s part of my strategy to get the two of them to work a little harder, and show a little more attention and devotion to this project. After some time, I’m going to let them both find out that I’ve contacted the other firm for their suggestions, and I am hoping that that competition will drive one of them to submit the best possible option to develop that land and get Cornwall off of our backs.”

Arthur sighed, without really meaning to.

“What?” Dutch asked, his irritation beginning to show.

“Just, isn’t it a little risky? Playing both of the firms until one of them gives you the answer that you want? You’re not afraid this will be turned around and blowback onto you?”

Dutch rolled his eyes so dramatically that he moved his entire head, craning his neck.

“Oh, are you the expert in business then?”

Oh, of course. _He always used the same goddamn tactic—_

“Dutch—”

“It will be fine, Arthur. We haven’t signed a contract with either of them, yet, so we’re not doing anything illegal. We don’t need to tell them that we’ve been working with both of them, and they don’t need to know. Besides, they should expect that at this point, we would have reached out to multiple firms to learn what each of them can offer us.”

Arthur sighed. And then he thought about it, and he thought about it some more.

It wasn’t that Dutch’s argument was good, per se, and it didn’t really convince Arthur that yes, everything would be fine. No, Arthur actually realized that if things between the two firms and with Dutch were to turn sour, as he expected it would, it wouldn’t be his responsibility to try and fix things. So why should he care, if Dutch were metaphorically playing with fire?

“Alright, fine. Do whatever.”

Dutch nodded and shook his head a little. And then he shifted his posture, dropping his fists from where he had held them against his hips, and relaxed his shoulders.

Now was the time for Arthur to ask Dutch about telling Kieran about him and John and Abigail. They were alone, Dutch wasn’t about to go anywhere, they had time to talk things over.

But Arthur couldn’t bring himself to do it. Dutch was Dutch, and fighting Dutch’s nature was like fighting gravity.

And then, in an entirely different tone of voice, Dutch asked, “are you going to Jack’s piano recital this weekend?”

“Yeah,” Arthur said, standing up a little straighter, knowing that the potential argument had passed them by. “Yeah, of course.”

“Well, alright then.” Dutch drawled, brushing a piece of lint from his shirtsleeve. “I’ll see you there, son.” And with a warm clap of his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, the two of them stepped out of the office and went to find Hosea.  And maybe to break into the liquor cabinet.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one was late! I had most of it written to be kind of a short chapter, and then I came down with the worst cold that I’ve had in years and I couldn’t stand to look at a computer screen for long, and I was going to proof and then post the chapter quickly but then I got better, and decided oh, no, let’s rewrite half of this and then add Penelope Braithwaite just because. And so that’s what I did. 
> 
> Sorry. 
> 
> And just a heads up—the next chapter is mostly written already, and that’s because, uh. It’s based on a pretty significant mission from the game.


	17. The Opposite of Luck

Five minutes.

There were only five minutes left until Arthur was finished with the morning shift, and it looked like Arthur was going to have to spend those five minutes with the one, the only, Micah Bell.

“So I heard Dutch has gone and gotten tangled up with Leviticus Cornwall.” He said, taking his change from Arthur and putting it back into his wallet.

“Yeah,” was Arthur's response. He was glad to have the excuse of pouring Micah’s coffee to be able to look away from Micah—maybe that would discourage him from trying to add onto the conversation.

It didn’t work.

“I’m sure he has some sort of clever plan to outsmart them.”

“Dutch certainly thinks it’s clever.”

“You don’t, cowpoke?”

“I’m used to Dutch’s clever plans.”

Arthur tried to leave it at that. He is all but telling Micah to fuck right off with his body language, and the sharp edge to his voice, but Micah ignores it all.

“Now, where’s your faith in your good friend Dutch?”

Arthur placed the coffee cup on the counter and doesn’t say anything as Micah picks it up.  Micah didn't say anything either—and he doesn’t leave. He’s waiting for his answer.

“I have an appropriate amount of faith in Dutch for someone who’s known him for more than 20 years,” Arthur said, grabbing his car keys and wallet from the little shelf under the counter where he’d stashed them that morning. “Now, have a nice afternoon, Mr. Bell.”

Micah’s face twitched into something ugly, for just a second, and then he left without another attempt at a clever comment.

Arthur took a moment to wonder what kind of things Micah Bell did in his free time, other than shoot guns and share unfounded information about different conspiracy theories on his business’ social media pages, and then Arthur decided he would rather not know.

And finally, with a nod to Javier and a Mary-Beth, he left.

He picked up some groceries, made a stop at his bank to deposit a check, and stopped by his mechanic’s to schedule his car’s yearly inspection.  All normal, if not every-day, occurrences.  

And then he went home, and parked his car in the garage, and carried his groceries halfway to the house when he stopped dead in his tracks.

To the side of his little back porch, on the side that ran along Sadie’s property, was a shrub. It was an ugly, scraggly looking thing, some kind of evergreen that Arthur didn’t really like, but he had left it there since he wasn’t sure what he wanted to replace it with.

He didn’t care for the shrub, but when he noticed that more than a few branches on the side of the plant had been bent or broken, he started to worry. He left his bags on the wooden floor of the porch and went to investigate.

It’s possible, of course, that some kind of animal did it. The people a few houses down the block had a rambunctious dog that would tear up any plant or patch of dirt he could find when he escaped from their fenced-in yard. It could have also been a rabbit, maybe a stray deer that wandered this far into town, looking for a meal.

But an animal wouldn’t have also left a can of green spray paint behind.

It was cheap, the cheapest brand you could find—Arthur knew these sorts of things—and it was very likely the spray paint responsible for the sloppy green four-leaf clover painted on the side of Arthur’s house.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, looking at the dripping paint.

“Son of a bitch,” Arthur said again, and leaned his forehead against the wooden siding of his house. For a minute, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do, what he’s supposed to do, but then he takes a deep breath and, without really making any decisions, he pulls his phone from his pocket and dials the police department.

There’s nothing Limpany Police could do, really. They’re hardly going to spend their time and money dusting for fingerprints over a little vandalism, but you’re still supposed to report these kinds of things. And having a police report would make handling things with his homeowner’s insurance easier.

Arthur isn’t sure how he knew these things, who told him—Hosea? Dutch? Someone else entirely?—but he knew that all the same. He is an adult, he supposes.  

And then he takes a few pictures with his phone, and goes inside and shoves his groceries into whatever cabinet or shelf they belong it.

It probably was a coincidence—that’s what Arthur told himself, as he put the spinach and milk in the fridge. The O’Driscolls probably saw Arthur’s house, the wide open expanse of the wall, and decided he was their victim.  It was a crime of opportunity, not something super deliberate and well planned.  

It was had to be random.

The officer that Limpany Police sent said much the same.

She arrived about ten minutes after Arthur called, and immediately set about scribbling down Arthur’s name and address in her note pad.

“Yours is the seventh or eighth house that’s called today. Most of them were tagged overnight, but I would guess they hit your house just after your left for work this morning, Mr. Morgan. Have you asked your neighbor on this side of your house if they saw anything?”

“No, she’s at work,” he said, his voice weak. “She'll be at work until well after dark.  And she would have told me immediately if she’d seen anything.”

The woman nodded, still scribbling away.

“I understand. Alright, well. So far, we think these were just some young people who were trying to impress Colm O’Driscoll, by tagging random houses all over the town. You mentioned you’d had previous experience with the O’Driscolls?”

Arthur nodded.

“Well, I don’t think these were real associates of Colm O’Driscoll. But we’ll be increasing patrols around residential areas, over the next week or so, in case they try it again. And I’ll be submitting this report as soon as I can, so you can let your homeowner’s insurance know it’s on file.”

Arthur nodded again.

“Thank you, for your help.”

And she took off, as quickly as she’d arrived.

Arthur stood around, looking around his yard with a vacant stare. Sadie was at work, and she would be at work for a while, yet.

So Arthur went inside, and sat, in his favorite spot on his couch. Boadicea looked up from where she was napping in the sunbeam on the floor.  She stared at Arthur with bleary eyes as he walked past, and then she went back to sleep.

It made sense, what the officer had said. Colm O’Driscoll hadn’t been all that concerned about encouraging his lackeys to do some vandalism and graffiti in nearly 25 years. He’d moved onto bigger and better things, like money laundering, drugs, and some occasional racketeering.

Supposedly.

The local police, state police, and the FBI hadn’t ever been able to get enough evidence to charge Colm, and maybe more importantly, to get the charges to stick. He’d been arrested numerous times, and he’d walked free just as many.  Sometimes that was because of insufficient evidence, one time it was because of a mistrial, and at least once, the judge that was supposed to try him died in mysterious circumstances a week before Colm's trial.  

Colm used to be a legitimate businessman—or, rather, there was a time before everyone knew he was a criminal. When Arthur was about 17, Dutch and Colm had almost gone into business together, with Colm’s brother. Then their plans fell through, because of something Dutch said to what’s-his-name O’Driscoll and Colm was less than pleased. Arthur never bothered to ask for more details—it didn’t seem right—so he never knew what exactly went wrong.

A few weeks later, it started.  

At first, it was the occasional black car, following Arthur as he walked around town alone or with his friends from school. Then, it was some threatening graffiti, green painted four-leaved clovers and messages saying ‘fuck you’ painted on their fence. Then Dutch’s car windows were broken by a mysterious figure with a crowbar, and then it all stopped after Dutch’s girlfriend, Annabelle, was killed in a car accident. She’d been run off the road as she drove back from Valentine, where she worked as a teacher, after a late night of parent-teacher conferences.

There wasn’t enough evidence to prove Colm’s men were behind it. And thankfully, for Dutch’s sake, Colm had packed up and moved out west after that—but he never stayed gone for good. Every so often, he would pop up in Saint Denis, in Valentine, in Strawberry.

There was just as little evidence to prove that Colm was behind the murder of Sadie’s husband, Jake. As Sadie told the story, her husband, a public defender, was selected to serve as the attorney for one of Colm’s local lackeys. The man ran a dive bar on the east side of town, near the highway, and had been arrested for a handful of charges once people caught onto the fact that they used the bar as a front for Colm’s money laundering. Jake started receiving messages, sent in whatever menacing way the O’Driscolls felt like, pressuring him into hiding certain evidence from the prosecution. He refused, Colm’s man was sent to federal prison, and Jake was dead a month later, shot during a supposedly random robbery at a local gas station.

But Sadie was certain it was Colm, and Arthur, from what he knew about the man, he believed her.

Which made it all the more suspicious that these O’Driscoll wannabes managed to pick Arthur’s house, and had spray painted the side of Arthur’s house that was visible from Sadie’s kitchen window.

The thought of it made Arthur sick to his stomach.

It could be totally random like the police officer said.  Like Arthur had said to himself. 

But the other houses gratified, they could have been done to make it only look like it was random. That they had targeted Arthur and Sadie deliberately, but then had sprayed other houses across town to hide their intentions.

It was possible. Colm knew Arthur was close to Dutch, that he was practically raised by Dutch. And even if Colm didn’t have anything to do with Jake Adler’s murder, he would probably know that the man’s wife was holding a killer grudge against him for it, regardless. It was too obvious—they had to have done it on purpose.

_No, no._

It could have been random. When was the last time that any members of the O’Driscoll gang had gone around, spray painting their four-leaved clovers to terrorize the townsfolk? This was probably just a joke, or someone trying to impress someone else in order to get a better criminal gig like they thought.

_A_ _nd what if it wasn’t?_

Arthur’s hand drifted down, to his pocket. He should call Dutch—

No, Dutch was the last person in the world he should call. He should call Hosea. Hosea stilled mourned Annabelle’s death, like the rest of them, but Hosea would be more level headed. Or, maybe he could call Trelawney, Arthur thought he had the records left from Dutch and Hosea’s old attorney, from the police’s investigation into Annabelle’s death.

Or, no, actually. He really should call his homeowner’s insurance and file a claim before he talked to anyone else. But talking to insurance people was always a nightmare…

But there was a crawling, antsy feeling settling into his stomach. Arthur needed to do something, anything, just to make himself feel better. Maybe he could—

His phone vibrates from its place, tucked away in his pocket, startling Arthur so badly he flinched. He’d forgotten his phone was there, and he’d been too lost in his own head.

Swallowing down his fear, Arthur pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen.

It was a message from John.

John made Arthur happy, but Arthur had never been so happy just to see John’s name in his entire life. Not some random number sending a threatening text, not some blocked number calling.

Just John.

With a shaking thumb, Arthur opened the message on his phone, held in his shaking hand.

_What shelter did you get Boudica from? *Boadicea, sorry, I forgot you’re a snob who couldn’t name your cat some normal name that autocorrect understands_

Arthur took in a short and shaking breath.

 _What_?

He read and reread the message a handful of times.

Of course. John wasn’t here with him, no one was here with him. John didn’t know what was going on.

Looking around the room to make sure he wasn’t on some sick prank TV show, Arthur answered John, giving him the name of the shelter where he’d gotten Boadicea as a kitten, and asked what the hell was up.

_Jack found a stray dog hiding under the neighbor’s shrub this morning, and I’ve finally earned his trust enough for him to let me touch him We may or may not be keeping him, depending on if he has a microchip, if the landlord agrees, if abigail agrees, etc etc he’s not visibly hurt or starving, but he looks like he’s been on his own for a while. I just wanted to know which shelter I should take him to to get looked at._

And a second message arrived, sent when Arthur was halfway through reading the first.

_He seems really sweet-natured_ _and friendly_ _,_ _so i’m struggling not to get my hopes up or jack’s hopes up that we can keep him_

And then Arthur replies, _Can I come over?_

_You know you can_

Arthur scratched Boadicea behind her ears in a farewell, and then snatched his car keys from where he’d left them on the kitchen counter.

He drove five miles over the speed limit during the journey to the Marston’s apartment on the south end of town, distracted by the growing, gnawing feeling in his gut.

_It had to be random, right?_

He parked in the driveway, behind John’s car. He was the only one at home, and Arthur could see him, even before he’d gotten out of the car. He was sitting on the ground, just in front of their front door, his hand on the neck of a filthy and skinny looking dog. The dog was laying on its stomach, its blue eyes open and staring at Arthur. His fur was dark and covered in spots, but Arthur couldn’t tell where the dirt started and the fur began. But he kept his head down, on the ground, with his legs splayed around him—the poor thing was clearly nervous, but he wasn’t the slightest bit aggressive, and he did not move as Arthur walked slowly up the sidewalk.

John doesn’t say anything, but he does offer a warm, distracted smile as he tears his eyes away from the dog. He was making quiet little shushing noises, that, almost embarrassingly, worked on Arthur. As he reached the edge of the Marston’s little porch, he was able to take the first deep breath he’d taken in nearly an hour, and the sharpness of it cut through the fog growing in his mind.

And it got John’s attention.

“You alright?” He asked, looking up from the dog.

Arthur started to shake his head but stopped himself.

“I’ll tell you on the way to the shelter.”

John narrowed his eyes, but then he nodded. Then he left Arthur outside to watch the poor stray and went inside to grab his car keys, a few old towels, and one more cracker coated in peanut butter.

The dog didn’t resist as Arthur and John coaxed him into the backseat of John’s car, and he laid down on the towels and made himself comfortable as soon as he was shut in.

And a moment later, John and Arthur were sitting up front, and John slowly backed his car out of the driveway and onto the quiet street.

“So what’s wrong with you? Something happen at work?” John asked, his tone slow and steady.

Keeping his eyes locked on the road directly ahead, Arthur told him. The can of spray paint discarded on the ground, the messy green clover, the call to the police and their insistence it was a random act of vandalism.

John’s quiet and calm demeanor chipped away with each word Arthur spoke. He had almost been serene, when he’d gotten in the car, for the dog’s sake. Now… he was less so.

Once Arthur was done with his story, finished with a few stuttered words, John tore his eyes away from the road for a moment. Arthur could clearly see the worry that had clouded over John’s eyes.

“Something like that...” John muttered, slowing the car to stop at a traffic light. “You either tell Dutch immediately, or you’re scared shitless of telling him. Which one is this?”

“The second.”

“Yeah,” John said, nearly sighing, as the light turned green and he could move forward again. “I can’t see him taking this… rationally.”

“I’m not taking this rationally.”

“Yeah, but it’s your house. You’re allowed to panic.”

“But Dutch...”

“I know. But it’s not his house. If it were his house, he would be allowed to react however he wants. But it’s your house, now. I know—I know that Colm O’Driscoll had people follow you before, but that was nearly 20 years ago. Do you think they would remember you, after all this time? Or remember that they could use you to get to Dutch?”

John’s words helped to clear away the knotting panic in Arthur’s stomach, but not for any good reason. No, it was the irony of the whole situation that provided just a tiny moment of relief for Arthur.

“Well,” he said, really drawing out the word. “If you google Dutch van der Linde, my Wikipedia page pops up as one of the first ten results, so I don’t think it would be that hard for them to make the connection.”

John is silent as they approach the shelter from down the street, and he is silent as he parks in their little gravel parking lot.

“You have a Wikipedia page?” He finally asks, over the sound of the car idling.

“It’s news to me, too.”

Arthur stayed in the car while John went in to get one of the volunteers, to start the paperwork and do whatever it is they usually do. And then they left, and went back to the house, while the kind people at the shelter took care of the poor dog.

They went back to the Marston’s apartment, and Arthur stuck by John’s side for the rest of the afternoon, like Copper used to do to Arthur whenever there was a thunderstorm.  He never left John's side. He helped John to put away the clean and dry dishes from dinner the night before, and volunteered to fold the clean towels as John folded Jack’s freshly wash and dried clothes.

During a lull in the afternoon chores, as John vacuumed the living room carpet, Arthur called his homeowners insurance. They made plans for Arthur to send in some photos of the spray paint, and the insurance would pay for someone to come and clean the bright green paint from the wooden siding.

When it was nearly time for them to pick up Jack from kindergarten, John laid a hand on Arthur’s arm and said, “you know you’re gonna have to tell Dutch, right?”

Arthur nodded.

“And you know… even if this random, you’re allowed to be terrified, right?”

“I know,” Arthur whispered.

They walked the three blocks to Jack’s school in the spring sunshine, and let the short trip pass in silence. They joined the crowd of the other parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles standing around, waiting for their child to come running out of the school.

They could hear a bell inside of the school ring, and soon, Jack came running out. He was in the middle of a pack of other kindergarten students, and he ran up first to John, then to Arthur, and gave them each a hug around their waists.

On their walk home, Jack was full of questions about the dog he’d found that morning, and John patiently tried to answer everything he could without getting Jack’s hopes too high that they might be able to keep the dog.

John started making dinner, while Arthur sat at the kitchen table with Jack and watched him finish his homework. At some point, John slipped out of the kitchen, and both Jack and Arthur tried to hide the fact that they were eavesdropping on John as he answered a phone call from someone at the animal shelter.

John walked back into the kitchen after a few minutes. Jack was watching his father, his big round eyes full of hope, and John sighed. He grabbed onto the back of one of the chairs and shifted his weight to stand with his feet apart, in a wide stance. It was the kind of pose that a dad took in a horrible sitcom when he had to deliver news that his child was going to wildly misconstrue.

That mental comparison made Arthur smile, just a little, for the first time all day.

And then, before John could deliver the long-awaited news, they all heard the front door swing open and Abigail's voice call “hello?”

“In here, mom!”

Abigail stepped through the doorway a split second later, her purse still on her shoulder and her keys still in one hand. She pecked John on the cheek, pushed past him, and gave her son a big hug and a whispered, “hey, you.” And then, taking one more step, she wrapped her arms around Arthur’s shoulders and squeezed tight.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, standing upright and pulling away.

“Bad day.” Was all Arthur wanted to say in front of Jack.

Abigail’s face never changes, but her shoulders freeze and her chins pulled up.

“I’m sorry to hear about that.”

The implied _we’ll talk about that later_ was obvious to Arthur.

During dinner, Jack pulls every scrap of information from John about the dog that he can. John starts by telling everyone around the table about how he coaxed the dog out of the bushes and to his side with canned fish and peanut butter, and how calm the dog was despite having every reason to be afraid of John and everything around him.

And then John passes along what the shelter had told him over the phone, just before dinner. The dog had a microchip, that said his name was Cain, and that he’d wandered all the way up from Blackwater. Cain had had an owner, an old man who lived on the near the lake, but he died nearly a month before, and Cain had run away from the old man’s family.

He’d gotten a few scrapes and scratches, and more than once had gotten infected. The shelter would bathe and groom the dog, and keep him for a few days to make sure the antibiotics had done their job. In as little time as a week, the dog could be available for adoption, if the previous owner’s family didn’t want him back.

“Can we, can we please?”

“Jack—”

“I found him, that means he wants to live with us.”

“Jack—”

“Please?”

“We can talk about it.”

Arthur wasn’t sure which one made him smile more—Jack’s earnest pleas or his schadenfreude at the tricky situation John and Abigail were in, trying not to upset Jack without making any promises they couldn’t keep.

And then Jack bounced away from the dinner table, and any hint of a smile on Arthur’s face disappeared.

“Now, what happened, Arthur?”

Arthur took another deep breath and then took another when the first one didn’t help clear his head nearly as much as he wanted it to. His thoughts and his vision were a little fuzzy.

In Arthur’s moment of hesitation, John told the story, as succinctly as possible. Abigail listens, and her face looks completely heartbroken as John’s version of the story finishes.

“Arthur.”

“Yeah.” He says, looking away from Abigail. She didn’t ask a question, but his answer is an admission, nevertheless. He is admitting to the fear she’s assuming he feels.

“Do you want to stay the night, here?”

He wanted to say yes, but sunset is slowly approaching, and night will follow.

So he said no.

“If... If they try to break in, or something, I should be there. And I left Boadicea there.”

Abigail nodded, and then, in her seat, turns to face her husband, who sits to her right. John’s face is stricken with anxiety, just like hers, just like Arthur’s, but he nods almost imperceptibly when she looks at him.

Together, they raise one of their fists out in front of them, and once, twice, three times, they play a game of rock-paper-scissors. John wins the first, Abigail the second, and John wins the third.

“I’ll be back.”

As silently as he could, John was gone.

“What was—”

“You’re not going back to your home to spend the night alone. Not for your sake, and not for ours.” Abigail said in her stern, motherly voice. “Please don’t fight us on this, Arthur. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“But now you and Jack will be alone—”

“We’re not the ones who will be staying in a house that’s been tagged by someone working for or hoping to work for an Irish mobster, Arthur.” She leaned over in her chair and wrapped her arms around Arthur’s shoulders again. This time, she pressed a quick kiss to the crook of his neck.

“Like John said, they think it was random—”

“ _Arthur_.”

“Okay.”

Arthur took another deep breath and smelled Abigail’s rose scented perfume. The sweet smell helped to cut through the fuzziness clouding his mind.

After another hour of quiet and strained conversation, Arthur and John say goodnight to Abigail and Jack and then they drive separately to Arthur’s house. When he gets home, Arthur parks in his garage, just as he had early that afternoon. Before John can remind him another time that he owes Dutch a call, Arthur pushes a button on his phone and calls Hosea instead.

“Arthur.”

“Hosea,” Arthur replied. He tried to speak normally, but Arthur isn’t really sure what his voice sounds like normally, so it wasn't very convincing.

“What’s wrong?”

He wasn’t at all convincing.

“I need you to talk to Dutch, for me,” Arthur said, pulling his keys from the ignition. “I was one of about eight people who had a green four-leaved clover spray-painted on their house last night.”

Over the phone, Hosea groans, and in the background, Arthur can hear one of the most distinctive voices he’d ever known as, “Hosea? What’s wrong?”

But rather than answering Dutch, Hosea asks Arthur, “Was it random?”

“They think so.”

“And the police?

“Are increasing patrols.”

Again, Arthur can hear Dutch through the phone asking “Hosea, what is going on?”

Still, Hosea does not answer.

“I’ll talk to him,” Hosea said, quickly. “Stay safe, Arthur.  Please.”

Then Hosea ended the call.

The darkness and the silence of the garage don’t help Arthur any. Not as his eyes adjust to the near-complete darkness, and shapes of totally innocuous gardening equipment and camping equipment form moving, indefinite shapes in his peripheral vision.

It’s nearly dusk outside, and there’s still plenty enough light to feel safe, even without the yellowed lights on the back porch. But Arthur jogs the distance between garage and house anyway.

But it was just random, Arthur reminded himself for the last time that day.

John is in the kitchen when Arthur walks in, feeding Boadicea a few treats from his hand, one at a time. He doesn’t look away as Arthur locks the door, or as he types in the key for his security system.

He finally looks up once Arthur stands at his side, near the counter.

“You know,” John said, and it’s a false start. He doesn’t finish the sentence, and there are so many possible things he could be saying that Arthur doesn’t know how to inspire him to continue that thought. Then Boadicea taps his hand a few times with one of her paws, so John feeds her another treat and starts again. “You know. No matter what happens, we’ll be here, right? For you.”

Arthur whispered, “I know.” It’s the knot in his throat keeps him from talking any louder than that.

“I remember Annabelle, what happened that first time. No matter what ends up happening, you have every right to be scared right now.”

Arthur can’t think of a single thing to say, so he pulls John against him, and wraps his arms around John’s waist. John is warm and strong against him, and he’s just the perfect height that Arthur can rest his cheek against the top of John’s head as they stand together, arms wrapped like a vice around one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *tour guide voice* And now, ladies and gentlemen and non-binary gentlefolk, if you turn and look at the chapter notes, you'll find some precious [fanart](https://twitter.com/kamonimo/status/1122458052177874947?s=19) from kamonimo of the chaotic mess that is the Van Der Linde Coffee and Tea gang trying to get through their daily grind. (get it?) I like to imagine they're all admiring Charles in this.


	18. Sittin' on the Deck of the House

Arthur was in the middle of making some steady progress on his painting of the Aurora Basin when his phone rang. He ignored it, because he didn’t want to break his concentration or interrupt his steady brushstrokes, and because he was certain it was probably just a scam call. Then his phone rang again, and he ignored it again. It rang a third time, and finally, with a disgruntled huff, Arthur set his brush and his pallet down and grabbed his phone from the table where it sat next to a row of tubes of blue and green pigment.

It was Dutch. Of course, it was Dutch.

Arthur swiped at the screen to answer the call, and immediately puts the call on speaker, so that he could rub the stress from his forehead as he answered, “what do you want?”

There’s a pause.

“I’m sorry, were you busy?”

Arthur tried not to laugh and successfully forced his indignant chuckle into a small cough that Dutch wouldn’t think twice about.

“I’m always busy, Dutch.”

“Oh… Well.” Dutch sounds confused like he’d forgotten that Arthur had lived his life on the samw general schedule for the past 10 years. “I’m sorry.”

A nervous little laugh of disbelief escapes from Arthur’s mouth, and he rolls his eyes.

“What did you call for, Dutch?”

He hears Dutch clear his throat through the phone.

“Hosea and Molly are both deserting me this evening. I originally had a meeting scheduled myself, but the other party canceled, so I wanted to see if you would like to come over for dinner tonight.”

Arthur’s previous plans for dinner that evening involved eating some of the leftover pizza he had waiting for him on the bottom shelf of his refrigerator.

“Sure,” he answers. “Are you cooking?”

He knows, instinctually, that wherever Dutch is, his eyes just narrowed and his lips pinched together.

“No,” Dutch replies. “I’ll pick something up, or order delivery. I was thinking Mediterranian, or maybe sushi.”

“Alright, well, surprise me.”

And then they say their goodbyes.

Two days had passed since the O’Driscolls had gratified the side of Arthur’s house—and the professional cleaners paid for by Arthur’s homeowner’s insurance would be dropping by tomorrow to remove the spray paint for good.

For the past two days, Arthur had been constantly surrounded by people. At first, it was John, who stayed that first night. They’d slept together in Arthur’s bed, John hand resting on top of his, and aside from some of Boadicea’s late-night antics waking them up, they’d slept peacefully. But then John had to leave for the coffee shop, so Arthur worked up the courage to go over and knock on Sadie’s door before she had to leave for work. Arthur didn’t say much of anything after Sadie and Bob greeted them at the door. Sadie did most of the communicating, which she did in the form of cursing under her breath and glaring, red in the face, at the green paint on the wall. Then she told Arthur that she was going to talk to some people in the police department, and then slammed the door in Arthur’s face, a thing she apologized to Arthur for almost an hour later.

Then Arthur went to work, and he was surrounded by all of his coworkers. Hosea and Dutch insisted on having a crowd of people over for an impromptu dinner party the day after the incident, and no one was willing to leave or let Arthur leave until it was nearly midnight.

Then the next day, Arthur had intended on settling into his studio to get some work done, but Sadie stopped by and told Arthur how she had taken the day off as a personal day, and talked him into running some errands with her all morning. He’d spent his afternoon at work and had somehow ended up being dragged to dinner by _Sean_ , of all people. Dinner with Sean had quickly turned into a last-minute movie night with John and Abigail and Jack, after Jack had personally called Arthur on his dad’s phone to beg Arthur to meet them at the local cinema to see some cloyingly sweet children’s movie about a lost alien trying to find his way back to his home planet.

And today, today was Tuesday, which meant it was blessedly Arthur’s day off. Sadie was back to work, John and Abigail and Dutch and Hosea were back to work, Jack was back in school.

Arthur was glad to finally have some solitude to paint. The quiet and peace and deliberate work in his studio helped more than his friends did, as guilty as that made him feel. He appreciated their obvious schemes set up to distract him from the mess at home, and to distract him from his own loneliness and thoughts. He needed it—he’d done an awful lot of controlled breathing exercises over the past few days to help with the anxiety weighing on his chest—but he was so glad he finally had a moment to breathe and be alone.

But his friend and family weren’t good at just… letting Arthur have some peace and quiet.

So Arthur was just a little suspicious that maybe, it was Dutch who had canceled that meeting, and not the other party. Or, maybe, that Hosea and Molly didn’t actually have any plans until Dutch _suggested_ that they make plans for that evening, so he and Arthur could talk one on one without interruption, without having to share anyone else’s time.

Dutch could try and be as sly and as clever as he could, but the man was no criminal mastermind. Arthur could always tell when Dutch was up to something.

_Oh god._

It took a little while for Arthur to put Dutch’s phone call behind him and get back to work.

Arthur left his studio and freshened up a little before he reluctantly left his house to arrive at the big house on the cliff a few minutes before 6 o’clock. It was the time that Dutch and Hosea had been having dinner at home since they all moved in together.

Inside the house, in the kitchen, Dutch was standing at the counter in the corner that they used as the bar. He had two glasses in front of him, and a bottle of scotch that wasn’t his favorite blend, but was still good enough to appease him while not being so expensive he could only justify drinking it on special occasions.

He was still partially dressed as he was from work, in black slacks and a blue button up shirt, but there was no vest and no jacket to be seen. And his hair was just a little imperfect, a little more tousled than the neatly combed look he’d been sporting for years.

Once upon a time—and Arthur had never said this out loud to anyone, not to Hosea, not to John or Abigail, not to a complete stranger on the street and certainly not to Dutch himself—but once upon a time, a young Arthur had realized that he was bi because of the horrible, simultaneous crushes he had had for both Dutch and Annabelle, may god bless her soul. There were numerous reasons why he had never told anyone that, his own continuing embarrassment the strongest reason of all. Yes, Hosea knew about his old crush on Dutch, but Arthur had never let him know that Dutch was the first man that Arthur ever really looked at in his neatly pressed pants and button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow and thought that he could—

_Stop, Arthur. For your own damn good._

His old crush on Dutch was one of those things he couldn’t think about without feeling visceral embarrassment, and he couldn’t feel embarrassed without blushing or stuttering or avoiding all eye contact.

Arthur cleared his throat, and Dutch looked over his shoulder.

“Arthur! There you are, son. How’s your day been? Are you feeling alright?”

“It’s been fine,” Arthur said, taking slow steps inside of the kitchen. “It’s been nice to have some quiet and get some work done.”

Dutch’s head swung around, back to the scotch and away from Arthur. He makes some wordless hum of affirmation, and diligently replaces the cap on the bottle and puts it back in the cupboard.

“I ordered Mediterranean.” Dutch said, grabbing hold of the glasses and tilting his head to the side at a spot on the counter where a few takeout boxes sat. “You like stuffed grape leaves, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

They sit and eat at the dining table, and Dutch very pointedly keeps the conversation polite. He asks Arthur about the goings-on at the coffee shop, and about the work he’d accomplished in his studio earlier that day.

Arthur answers, and does not ask his own questions. It’s difficult to do so, when he’d just seen Dutch two days before, and again a few days before that. Arthur already knows how Dutch his doing, how Hosea and Molly are doing, and he can see for himself that The Count and Silver Dollar are doing just fine.

By the time they’ve finished with dinner, Dutch has had enough scotch to loosen his tongue a little. He drags Arthur out onto the wooden deck behind the house, in the golden evening light, and brings the bottle of scotch with him. Dutch refills his glass before settling onto the wooden chair next to Arthur. Arthur only acceptee half of a finger of whisky. He had to drive home after all of this, and having dinner and drinking with Dutch isn’t a good enough time to justify having to sleep off his buzz by staying over in his old bedroom.

He could just imagine the conversation he would have with Hosea in the morning, when he had to admit that he got drunk and talked to Dutch about… business.

Because that’s what Dutch was talking about. From the moment he sat down on the wooden chair, The Count curling up at his feet, Dutch started talking about the growth his and Hosea’s businesses had seen so far that year, from the coffee shop to the bakery, to the real estate business and the community foundation they created years ago.

Dutch talked and talked, and Arthur’s mind went slowly and numbingly blank. The alcohol was partly to blame, but most if it was just because Arthur never had the mind for business that Dutch and Hosea, even John, had. He technically owned his own business, as a painter, but he had Strauss to do all of the numbers, and since he was such good friends with all of the gallery owners in the area, working with them wasn’t _work_ , it was just talking with an old friend.

And Arthur understood things like return on investments, limited liability corporations, networking, and trademarks. He would rather spend his time thinking about… anything else. 

And that’s why he was more than a little startled when a noisy bird flew overhead and snapped Arthur out of his daze, and he realized he’d Dutch had started talking about his newest business associates, the Greys and the Braithwaites.

“—I’m telling you, Arthur, I think I struck gold with this one. Both firms know that I’ve contacted other firms to get their plans for the development, and their ideas keep getting better and better. There was one plan, from the Braithwaites—oh, I won’t bother you with that, Arthur. It won't be long before they realize I’m working with their greatest rivals, and then, I am certain they will produce some top-notch plans for the land. I really think we’re on to something great, here, Arthur.”

“Sure,” Arthur mumbled, looking down into his drink, before pointedly casting his eyes back towards the expanse of evergreen trees in front of him.

“What?” Dutch asked, his head slowly turning towards Arthur, the same look of exaggerated disbelief etched into his face that he always used when teasing Arthur. “Are you still skeptical of this plan?”

“I’m skeptical of every one of your plans, Dutch,” Arthur said, pushing himself to shift his posture in his wooden chair so he could face Dutch without having to bend his neck quite so sharply to the left. “I’ve seen enough of them blow up in your face, or just. Sputter into nothing.”

“And plenty more of them have succeeded!” He insisted. Dutch didn’t exactly sound angry. No, there was a slight quirk to his lips that Arthur took as a sign Dutch was certain that they were just teasing each other.

“Yeah—the coffee shop is great. Horseshoe Overlook is great, even if not all of the people there are great.”

“Are you talking about one of your coworkers?”

“Of course I’m not talking about someone else who works at the coffee shop—”

Dutch leaned in, closer to Arthur, and set his empty glass onto the arm of his chair.

“Are you talking about Uncle? Because you know he does his part—”

“I am not talking about Uncle,” Arthur insisted. He knew he was red in the face.

“Oh, so it’s another dig at Micah, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s another dig at Micah. I don’t have the faintest clue what you see in him.”

“He is gruff, and he is not the kind of person I usually call a friend, but he’s not so bad. It’s good for me to listen to someone whose ideas are so genuinely unlike my own. He brings a different perspective to things.”

“He’s a rat.”

“You don’t know that—”

“No I don’t, but I know he’s a creep. He's always flirting with Abigail and the other girls, even when they certainly haven't encouraged him.”

Dutch’s face dropped every modicum of control, and surprise flashed behind his dark eyes.

“Well,” he said, hesitating. “You may be right about that.”

At that beat in the conversation, Dutch shifted tactics. He tried and failed to tease Arthur into spilling some secrets from his relationship with John and Abigail. Arthur refused to give into Dutch’s needling and didn’t give him any of the sordid details he really wanted.

All he would admit to Dutch was that yes, he never went more than two days without seeing either John or Abigail, even if it was just a moment in passing on their way to or from work. But he didn’t feel like he spent enough time with them.

“If you ever want some books about maintaining a healthy polyamorous relationship, or some psychological studies to read—”

“No.”

“Are you sure? I have a few—”

“I’m sure.”

 _Dutch isn’t the only one who can change the subject._ To sate his need for gossip, Arthur sighed and tried to look like he was totally nonchalant, without a single worry or bother that might have been caused by Dutch. And then he asked, “so you know Mary-Beth and Kieran have been dating?”

Dutch needed a solid five minutes of nosand _are you sure_ s before he took Arthur at his word.

“Huh.” He finally said, relaxing into his chair again.

“I said the same thing.”

Dutch shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing a few locks back into place.

He changed the subject again.

“You know Kieran used to work at the dive bar of Colm’s, the once they used as a front. Just before it shut down.”

Arthur repeated Dutch’s statement in his head twice before the words made sense to him. But still, it was outlandish.

“Kieran Duffy?”

“Do we know any other Kierans?”

“Mousy, timid little _Kieran Duffy_ used to work at that hole?”

“He was a bartender,” Dutch said, moving his empty scotch glass to a slightly safer spot on the deck floor. “Now, at that place, it was mostly just popping the cap off of bottles of cheap beer and pouring straight shots, and deliberately not talking to people, but he can make a damn fine Old Fashioned.”

“What, did you have him over for dinner or something?”

“I did. Just last night, in fact. I thought, well, it’s such a shame that I hardly know the man, even though he’s been working for me for nearly three months. So Hosea and I had him over for dinner last night, so we could all talk and—”

“And you could pump him for information about Colm?”

Dutch’s charming facade drops.

“Yes.” He says, his voice dropping lower. “He didn’t know much, which I expected. Colm is good at compartmentalization. And he’s never cared to get to know his people, much, not even the legitimate employees.  Kieran never even knew they were running laundered money through that place."  

Arthur sighed, with the weight of a dozen ancient conversations on his chest, and Dutch's face fell into a defensive look of suspicion.

“Dutch—”

Arthur tried to speak, to say anything to curb Dutch's decades-old fury, but he knew Dutch didn't want to listen.  He never wanted to listen, when it came to Colm and Annabelle.  

“You can’t expect me to not take Colm’s very existence on this planet a threat, Arthur. Not after what he’s done, and not after what he’s taken from me.”

And that's it.  That's the end of the conversation.  

Arthur cannot move, and he cannot speak. Not one of his muscles, from his head to his toes, can move until he realizes he’s been nodding the entire time.

They don’t speak much after that. Soon, the fireflies came out and the birds swooping around the sky were replaced by chattering bats as the sun sank down even lower in the sky.

Hosea and Molly come home, half an hour apart from each other. They both step out onto the deck to say their hellos and goodnights to Arthur and vanish to somewhere else in the labyrinth of the house.

Not long after, Arthur silently stood up and clapped a hand on Dutch’s shoulder. Dutch sees him to the front door, as if Arthur didn’t know exactly where he was going. They said goodbye at the door and Dutch bid Arthur a  _stay safe_ and a  _good night._ Arthur drove home in silence, and sent a quick message to both of the Marstons— _do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow?  i saw Dutch tonight, he said he'd be willing to spend the evening with Jack._

Dutch had never said anything of the sort, but it only seemed fair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is late again, and it comes across as a filler chapter, because (spoilers) it is a filler chapter. This is the equivalent of the scene with Dutch (and Swanson? maybe, I can't remember if he's there) that happens after Arthur escapes the O'Driscolls and recuperates.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! Chapter updates will come once a week, on the weekend, until I get the whole thing written, then they will get more frequent. Saddle up, friends.


End file.
